Band Camp News

Bygone dog days of summer

2009-07-15T23:51:00.001-07:00

Ah yes, the dog days of summer. Those lazy afternoons, the inviting dip of the pool, cool of the shade and days folding in and out of each other until one loses track of time.
I loved this summer, but it was zipping by as summers do. I looked at my calendar and realized, summer is nearly over. School starts earlier this year, for my kids at least, Paradise Unified school district (sick bastards) decided that August 11th would give ample time for students to get in enough Xbox hours, swimming and eating their parents out of house and home.
Suddenly I noticed, we had less than 28 days of summer left. I had yet to start my summer to do list:
1. Annual house de-clutter
2. Garage sale of said clutter
3. Finally finding the matches to all those damn socks-makes my Tupperware graveyard look sparse
4. Resurrection of the Tupperware to move on to bigger or recycle places
5. Kids school supply list purchased
6. Family dental visits
7. Family annuals
8. Animal annuals
Already feeling like a failure, I noticed a looming red date marked on my calendar-July 15th-4PM, Lucky dog and Jack the cat to the vet. It was going to be a red-letter day in the Wycoff home, one time at band camp....

Usually, the vet journey is accomplished with less fuss than it was taking my kids to their doctor appointments. Most people can lie to their animals, we are no exception. The fur members of our family at least, fall for our family code phrases such as, “Oops, dropped it,” when we drop a freshly cut vegetable and our intellectually-challenged dog gobbles it up without much thought, except perhaps, after his gobble wondering, Why does steak have an after taste of zucchini?
The operative phrase for going to the vets was, “Let’s get ice cream.” Our dog, Lucky, will bless our house with long spider web streams of saliva upon the mere mention of ice cream. Of course, we lose brownie points from our vet for the number of times, “Let’s get ice cream,” really meant getting ice cream, rocky road to be exact.
We call it creative training.

Today's vet visit would require the same code phrase. The kids enthusiastically belted out the phrase, "Let's get ice cream," and before the words were out, streams of saliva trailed behind our faithful four-legged beast as he lumbered into the back seat of my soccer mom mobile, tongue dangling below his chest, madly wagging his tail. I felt a little ashamed, noting that my car was now the scene of my falsehood crime. Jack, the cat, normally a very docile and congenial cat, darted past the dog, running low and dove, head first into the Hydrangea bush, orange tail whipping madly as he growled and clung to the wispy branches.

Oh Oh. Jack was onto us. Score one for feline brainpower.

While the kids rallied to find a box to capture our reluctant patient, oops, I mean; ice cream compadre, the dog decided to jump from the back seat to the front, simultaneously locking us out of our car while blaring the horn. This really didn’t help put at ease, our somewhat camouflaged feline, who had at that moment decided the roof was a more adequate place to hiss and growl at his would-be captors.

Fifteen minutes later, two harried kids, one wrestled, hissing and yowling cat, four scratches later (one that required stitches), we attempted to reason with our happy wannabe Nascar driver to give up the fight, he wasn’t driving. Ten minutes of locating spare keys, hot dog coaxing and eight gallons of canine drool later; Lucky dog finally relinquished his driving privileges and hopped back into his designated area.

We were now ten minutes late for the “ice cream” appointment. Driving carefully, to avoid the freedom-seeking body slamming cat-in-the-box, we zoomed to the vets. The despairing cry of my children, “The drool, the drool, there’s no escape,” regarding Lucky’s contribution to draught relief sent me into overdrive as I sped down our winding road, trying to outrun gravity. In typical Wycoff fashion, I was covered in fur, blood marks from scratches and now a large, wet, long snail trail of drool, edging its way down my seat, onto my shoulder, threatened to settle into my cleavage. I was going to resemble a modern day tar and feathered prisoner: Coated in drool, blood and fur.

Wisp's of fur flew out the cracked car windows and drool marks clouded every square inch of visibility. To anyone passing us on the road,our car probably resembled an animal control vehicle, complete with Lucky's tongue protruding out the crack of the windows.

Flashing lights and a quick peek in my rear view mirror confirmed that yes; I was getting a speed ticket. Pulling over, I was careful not to roll the window all the way down, explaining to the patient officer our dilemma. Getting off with a warning and lecture on the proper way of safely transporting animals, I felt relieved, though we weren’t out of the woods yet.

Arriving at the vets, the cat finally escaped, popping his head out of the box and getting two talon-fixed paws out ready to strike his next victim. We decided the plan of action was to leave the cat in the car, taking our slobbering, happy dumb dog in first. After a desperate phone call to the Vet, The vet assistants met us in the parking lot, decked out with gloves, and toting a crate, ready for battle.
As my kids escorted our ice-cream bound dog, the vet’s assistant gloved up and helped me with the hissing devil, formally known as Jack the cat. Carefully opening the door, the vets assistant grabbed our feline as I covered, hunkering down behind, praying that #1 the assistant didn't have gas and #2 that I would be able to grab our orange, fabulous flying fur ball.

Finally, Jack was safe in the arms of the vet, the annuals were completed and we reluctantly made our way back to the car or rather, scene of the crime.
Our ride home was considerably less active, our cat growling softly, effects of a small sedative working, while Lucky dog, still reeling with confusion as to why the Vets exam table didn’t taste like ice cream, gave the back seat interior a bath.

Ah summer. The kids and I sit, gorging on rocky road ice cream, Lucky dog continues to lick his bowl clean of ice cream. His aggressive licks tell me that he knows in his pea-brain: If he licks long and hard enough, making an annoying clang of the bowl, more ice cream will somehow magically appear.

And Jack, still angry; has that, weird angry drunk look,sniffs disapprovingly at his bowl of ice cream. His dark cat thoughts are audible with every whip of his tail, "Dog days of summer my arse, next time, I am taking off an arm!"

2009-05-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

One time at Band camp...
I woke up and saw that we weren't in Kansas anymore. We are now in the land of greed and money monger celebrities. It shouldn't have shocked me, but now it's infringing on my livelihood and art form!

The lines have been drawn and once again, the greed of the wealthy seems to have waged war on the average person. Since the beginning of America’s love of pop culture there has been a war brewing: Performing artists (some of the world’s wealthiest citizens) have decided to enact The Performance Rights Act, rallied by Bono and other major bank celebs. It has me wondering, what the hell? If we activate this Red Herring of radio stations paying royalties for every song they play, the line in the sand will become very blurred and then, where does it stop?

As it stands, Celebs want royalties every time one of their songs is played on the radio. Radio stations are creatures of habit; they play the same songs (usually the top ten) in the same order for the same duration of time. How do songs get on the top ten? Radio stations play them. Ratings go up or down (according to the taste of us, the average Joe) and then the songs become part of the elite top ten. Listeners run out and buy the CD because they have liked the sound of the artist or group. See? It was the great circle of Americana life.

As a playwright, I’ve used snippets of popular songs during seating, blackouts, scene changes, line deliveries, intermissions, etc. The audience relates to the songs and it moves the play and atmosphere along. I’ve paid for the music and I have made my own CD mixes for each play and if I don’t, every song I’ve suggested in the script is backed by the theaters owning the music, meaning they own a CD or song closely resembling the one I suggested. In addition, the theaters that have been host for my plays have a “blanket insurance” policy. Moreover, they have a clause which states that their patron fee for the showing of my play only covers the bare minimum of the performance (believe me, my royalties average out to be cents, which is why I have a day job). In addition the theaters give credit to the artist by listing the songs and artist in my play programs. Now I’m wondering, do I have to pay an added fee for the chorus of Boy Georges, Do you really want to hurt me? After one of my characters offs her husband with a frying pan? I’m thinking, yes. Even though it’s the theaters track? Definitely yes.
Damn!
One more thing, on top of the billion other things I have to do just to get something from my twisted brain staged (blog to follow, I promise).

So where does the line in the sand end? While the greedy singing sensation horizon inches its way toward cover bands, Karaoke lounges and Community Theater, Do we sink into the sand or jump for solid ground? It’s bad enough that we have to sing really lame renditions of Happy Birthday in public (including classrooms and soccer fields) because a certain celebrity owns the copyrights to that staple of American culture.

What’s next? Will celebrities make the public put a quarter in their dashboard when the DJ announces, “Next up, PINK with ‘I wanna start a fight,’ please insert .75 or you can listen to three and a half minutes of Enzyte commercials.”

2009-05-09T00:25:00.000-07:00

One time at band camp ...

I looked in the mirror and saw my mothers face, frowning back at me. I used to be embarrassed that I was like my mom. I didn't like that I have her eyes, coloring and her smile . I didn't like that we carry the same gait and our laugh is hearty, complete with snorting, once we get going-- so unladylike! I didn't like that we share a love of throwing a good bash. I really detest that she and I share a weird (if not sick) sense of humor. Upon my announcement of being pregnant with my second, my mom threw in my face, complete with a snide grin, "Karma dear." To this day, I shiver with those words..I know just what kind of trouble I was. I was in deep trouble!

I am truly, my mothers daughter, both physically as well as crediting her for some of my personality quirks. Of course, I can't blame my mom for all my oddities. My strong personality often (here's a shock) gets me in trouble. My discernment becomes blurred when the things I perceive to be in my control, suddenly run through my fingers like water. I am a wanna be slob, but because of my need for control, the struggle between the slob and clean freak turn me into one frazzled woman, unbalanced between my creativity (cooking, writing, baking, playing) and June Cleaver.

On this, the eve of my son's thirteenth birthday and mothers day weekend, I somehow feel very out of control. I have no control over the fact that I am now the shortest person in my house. I am 5' 8" tall. When did this happen? There is a new baritone voice at the other end of our dinner table, in the back of my car, on the other end of the phone. When did this happen? There is men's deodorant in our bathroom, a razor in the medicine cabinet and huge shoes littering the living room. When did this happen?

I truly didn't see this coming. With Emily, my now fifteen-year-old, her thirteenth birthday arrived in party form, lacking these vivid feelings of inadequacy, loss of control and a deep, deep nostalgia of birthday parties past. I have a young man in my house now. No longer the pudgy baby nor little boy, but a lanky young man. A thirteen-year-old who, despite the fact that I hope to come a close second to being as gorgeous as my mother, I am his mother and unintentionally embarrass him. Our relationship has shifted and there are now implied rules of engagement between us.
Lately, he hasn't wanted to hug me. I get the "side" hug or worse, a high five. There is the unwritten rule of boydom that you absolutely cannot acknowledge your mom while you're with your friends, no matter how loud she calls your name. Asking why you should do something repeatedly will probably get you out of doing something your mother wants you to do, especially after she worked a ten-hour day. Hording and eating constantly is a good method of keeping your mother out of your room, because what the hell is that smell? You must have at least four friends over (who sound like 'Dory' from Finding Nemo because their voices are all changing) to play endless hours of Xbox 360 and farting is required. This also helps to keep the nosey mother out of your room. Karma, it's a bitch.

I've had my share of being embarrassed by him too. As a precocious three-year-old, he marched up to our Pastor's wife and announced that he had a penis and she had a vagina.
He was a hard baby. Nothing stayed down, he spit everything up, usually, I'd be prepared. During an outing with college friends, I was showing them some of the sights of Chico. Nine-month-old Joshua projectile spit from his car-seat, instantly spraying my friends and the windshield. I literally waited for his head to spin around, thinking he was possessed.
During an over-the-hill party for a friend, a 'Fart' book was read aloud. One of the pages read, "Girls don't fart" and an animation of a girl swinging, farting and birds falling out of the tree, dead. Joshua stands up and announces, "My mom farts! She is the biggest farter in our house. Sometimes, her farts are so loud, they shake the house!"

Ahhh yes, memories. Tomorrow, I will have four farting, eating, loud teenage boys in my house. My mothers day encompasses rousing pizza-hung over and XBox play-off boys with pancakes, hopefully getting them all out of bed before noon, so I can enjoy my Mothers day. My daughter has abandoned me and has resolved to house sit for a friend. The only consolation is that my fridge is full and my bedroom is my sanctuary. I have a large TV, DVD player and I am not afraid to use it. Though my bedroom lock has been picked many times by my dear kids, I know for a fact that the boy party will not intrude.

Two weeks ago, I was in the realms of my shower experience, shaving, shampoo-ing and singing, at the top of my lungs, Stings 'Roxanne.' Little had I known that four farting, hording, eating boys had moved their Xbox play-offs into my room. After all, I had the bigger TV. Grossly involved in their game, the boys ignored my singing antics (only reserved for the shower) and continued with their game. Meanwhile, I finished my shower, towelled off and strolled, stark naked to my bed, to retrieve my robe.

Needless to say, I had some esplainin to do and after several giggles from the farting, eating and hording boys and groans from my poor son, I made the necessary apologies and rapid phone calls to parents.

Yes, as I look into the mirror, I really have become my mom. My son is thirteen as of now, midnight. Hopefully, I will get to endure thirteen trillion more memories. As for now, this moment, I think I will enjoy a bit of Karma and get my video camera ready for postings of "four teenage boys asleep," on Youtube. Karma. Makes me chuckle complete with snorting!

Happy mothers day!

2009-04-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

One time at band camp...

I reflected and finally dealt with the losses I've had to endure of late: Loss of a cell phone, loss of my youth and loss of a childhood/lifelong friend. Of course most people feel the sting of loss and grief in their life during the holidays and I was no exception.

My cell phone committed suicide, tired of the abuse it took during its short life, took a final plunge into Bidwell creek from its lofty perch atop my bike shorts. Guess it finally reached the end of its rope (or in this case, signal), when I downloaded naughty pics from my girls weekend in Reno. Hey, Patron really does make your clothes fall off. Perhaps my cell, my precious was sick of the teenage slobber and verbiage when my kids borrowed it? Possibly, it became bored with all the telemarketers from colleges wooing my straight-A high school sophomore? Maybe it was just sick of my eclectic play list?Whatever the reason, my precious was no more and like Homer Simpson, I wailed, "Dough!" as it swan dove over the bridge into the icy depths of Bidwell Creek last Monday. One minute, connected to my world, the next, seemingly lost. Having to rely on my home phone dealt me a blow. My teens have no secretarial skills:

"Mom, someone called." Let the interrogation begin:

"Was it a man or a woman?"

"I dunno."

"Well, was it one of my girlfriends, like Meg? Or Tonya? How about ,Auntie Fran, Bri, Kathie or Kelly?"

"I dunno, guess it was a girl."

"Was she from my work maybe? Was it Dor, my boss?"

"I dunno."

"Was she Auntie Lynn or Grandma?"

"I dunno, guess they'll call back."

"Oh, did you get the number?"

"What number?"

"Never mind."

Seriously. This conversation nearly had me in an early grave and gave me more grey hair to hide amongst the lagging blond streaks. My friend and hairdresser extraordinaire Stephanie weaves the multitude of white(grey) into the blond and adds Carmel, thus giving me the illusion (and I use this term loosely) of being a young woman, of mysterious age, or so I told myself. Apparently the mystery was solved and my white hair gave away my maturity as my friends sauntered into a dance club, giggling when the bouncers checked their ID with humorous scrutiny. I however got the go ahead wave. How insulting! Not even a bat of an eye, just the old, "Go ahead," and wave. Defeated I skulked into the dance floor. However this latest deflation kind of goes with the series of losses and downtrodden mindsets.

David's death leaves me spiritually numb. He is the third friend I have lost in two years.

Like so many of my golden friends, Dave and I grew up in the United Methodist church in Santa Rosa, having been inducted into the close-knit church families. We'd camp together along with thirty or so other families. We went on ski trips, hiked and picnicked at Annadale Park,backpacked through the Sierras, roller skated at Cal Skate, slurped ice-cream Earthquakes at Swensens, snuck into movies, attended the same schools and Junior college, griped about the injustice of teachers and their politics and always intermingled. The best way to describe our relationship: Rolling, repetitive waves of childhood fun, youth group activities and general good times.

Dave was my brother, both spiritually and personally as we found a kindred spirit in our silliness and love of nature at an early age. One of our favorite pastimes was to compete in pranks and jokes. Unfortunately, many people didn't get our humor and we'd be the only two hyenas in the group. If only to find camaraderie rolling on the floor, tears streaming, laughing. Yet we also shared a love of essays and poems by a modge podge of writers.
We'd find each other often on weekends, me, leading my horse Samantha, Dave wandering, at the field near what is today, a junior high school in Rincon Valley and we'd just walk, shortly greeting each other as if we had caught each other in some awful crime, of wandering and then just hike through the field. In a way, recognizing and embracing each others struggle of wanting the solitude life like Thoreau, yet knowing we were social beings. Caught in between to insure our torturous teen existence (I suspect that is why we both worked very hard at entertaining each other and others, sort of fooling ourselves to ensure that we were "normal").

During early college days, we'd bump into each other on Santa Rosa Junior College campus, reminisce about days gone by, jokes gone good, bad or ugly and then our lives, like our childhood friendship, dissipated into the mists of growing up and apart. I'd catch up with Dave now and again via Christmas cards,phone calls, visits back home and news from worried parents.

Parents, no matter how much you try to teach them, will always and forever worry. Especially it seemed, our set of folks. Our youth group was so close, a vestibule of love and sharing which poured and seeped into individual lives, in a time when one is supposed to be discovering independence; our youth group grew closer, tighter and involved parents and clergy alike. It wasn't a cult,yet had those facets; a commune of love and a large sense of extended families. I knew in my heart that if I had an issue with my parents (which, I had a lot, just like any teen), I could go to any of my friends parents and share without judgment. What I percieved as little tragedies of teen drama would seep out and disturb the peaceful pond of our little haven. But in all, those relationships have molded who I am today, taught me about the love of Christ, the fellowship of belonging and the rules of engagement with the opposite sex. Those feelings of warmth and love will never be replaced, no matter how hard I try. I can only pray that my kids will embrace the hope of similar friendships in their church upbringing.

After my first move away from my hometown, I went through mourning and actual with drawls from those relationships. Trying in vain to recapture those warm and fuzzy feelings, but no one could ever replace those friends, the golden friends of my childhood and youth. One very callous person even suggested that I stop trying, stating, "You will never, ever find friends that you are close to as you had as a kid. Just deal with it, grow up and settle that you may find one or even two very poor substitutes that you can go to a movie with now and again, but you'll never have a group of good friends like that again." Ouch! Looking back, I can clearly see that this person had and still has issues in their own relationships.

Like anyone in my early twenties, I'd make the annual pilgrimage to my homestead for holidays, as a young bride, squeezing in my husbands family to accommodate the guilty visits of relatives. Filtering in time in for home-bound college and youth-group friends became more and more difficult as our ever extending family demands enveloped the short visit like thunderheads, bullies; rolling over a grassy meadow, pushing the sun away. We all tried and for some, the attempts paid off and they are, as proof on their face book and my space pages, close as ever.

As fate would have it, Dave swept into my life again, dating my step-sister for a short while and giving all of us the best extension of self: His daughter Lexi. Lexi is just a few months apart from my son. As parenthood overtook our lives, our friendship rekindled and we embarked upon revisits of old stomping grounds; introducing our kids to Swensens earthquakes, Roller skates and ice skates, picnics at Annadale, birthday parties and shared family gatherings. For an all too brief time, our silliness re-ignited and though it wasn't exactly the same as when we were kids and youth it came a close second. His troubled relationship with my step-sister strained the extended relationships and made it difficult to cut through the bull. Our kids grew up and apart, family gatherings were less frequented and again, the relationship dissipated into annual Christmas greetings and phone calls.

Running through Annadale the morning of Dave's memorial left liminol and sharp images folded through-out my memories, as most memories are. We remember as if on rewind, fastforward or pause and that is the way I will always remember life with Dave: Lexi and Josh with bright orange water wings toddling into the shallows of Spring lake. Dave and I in our teens, jumping off the lift during a youth ski trip, just because there was a ginormous pile of snow below us and well, we just had to do it, nearly killing ourselves but rendering us helpless, both from the wind being knocked out and our laughter consuming us. Introducing our kids to kite flying at Salmon creek. Cutting fourth period high school business class (which happened to be taught by one of my future in-laws) and stealing away to Perry's deli. During another cut day, on a dare, jetting off to indulge in SF's Ghiradelli hot fudge sundaes. Walking barefoot on Queen Willemina's lawn in SF directly after Dave's chronic illness diagnosis. We munched on carrot sticks and enjoyed a rare warm day. His teasing, calling my kids, "Anne-and-Tomically correct" putting my name and my husbands together-ha ha! The last conversation I had with Dave: Debating whether or not to put in my garden this year. I vehemently didn't want to battle the critters and possible fire issues, but Dave urged, having of late becoming quite the avid Gardner. My tomato plants are budding. I hopefully gaze, now in anticipation, as small bees do their thing and I will be able to make Christmas salsa, yet another one of Dave's recipes.

In some ways, I concede to affirm that once callous friend's prediciton: No, I will never have the friendships nor friends for that matter I had in my childhood or youth. Being the social creature I am, my friends today are soul sisters and brothers, I have found during some of the most challenging aspects of my life (rather I think, they have found me as God sent them). I probably wouldn't have had the wisdom nor discernment in my childhood or youth to befriend such treasures of souls. Yet as the recent trip to Daves memorial brought those golden friends together again, I truly miss those times of yesteryear.

I mourn Dave as I mourn my other friends who have passed; complete heartache, but his death leaves a deeper wound. I can only sum it up to the feeling I get when I watch the end of Black Beauty: In dreamlike state, the horse settles in his old age, lying under the shade tree gazing over the pasture he and his friends used to run free in and he remembers as if it were yesterday; carefree, mane and tail flying, playing and romping. Knowing that their friendship is forever.

I can almost empathize the deep ache and sadness the disciples had for Jesus's death, yet they hadn't the knowledge I have, that I will see my brother again.
There is nothing more to say other than my poor attempt of rambling in the ache of missing my friend and friends.
I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from

Henry David Thoreau

As surely as the sunset in my latest November
shall translate me to the ethereal world,
and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth;
as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying ear
shall make age to be forgotten,
or, in short, the manifold influences of nature
survive during the term of our natural life,
so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend,
and reflect a ray of God to me,
and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,
no less than the ruins of temples.

One Time At Band Camp

2009-02-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

One time at band camp…

I went to the movies with my teenagers. OK, scratch that, I was the driver to the movies for my teenagers and their horde of eating machines. This was the second time in a week that I’ve become aware of my nerdiness. Last Sunday, I went down to my friend Chucky’s new Tattoo studio and there I was, in all my marmish glory: Mom jeans, no makeup ( I figured I would be crying since this time, I would be sober during my inking), a very ugly KISS t-shirt. I Completed look with a monolith mom clip in my hair to keep it off the vulnerable area. And, there they were; Chucky, his apprentice and a friend…all tatted up and smiling. Great! Even if I did entertain thoughts of chickening out of this escapade into mid-life crisis, I’d have to suck it up and carry through. Forget about crying or wincing. I had to take it like a man. I did. Not one sound did I make, nor any muscle moved. With the help of my Lil’ Wayne, Black-Eyed Peas, Ray, Smash Mouth, Hootie, Cold Play, music… I took it like a woman. However, though I was tough and as my friend Jess said, “I always said you had ovaries of steel,” I still didn’t come off as one of them. I was still (the now tatted mom), in mom jeans with mom hair and a really big, goofy triumphant smile as if I had run yet another marathon. Plus, while cracking a joke about woman pain versus man pain, I snorted, which really startled the macho men. Shocked, they just stared at me, as if I had made some really poor off-color joke, which probably would have gone over better as opposed to my poor attempt at tattoo humor and snort laugh. I’m pretty sure after my sheepish departure, they were laughing.

You can take the mom-jeans off the nerd, but the nerd will forever be present, ready to snort laugh at the drop of a slapstick bit, ready to “join in” a conversation no mother should ever, ever think about joining into and ready to call her teenagers “honey” in front of their friends. So, there I was, back at band camp, driving gum smacking, giggling, “Whatever,” and “Oh my God, no he didn’t” lamenting teens to the movies. I was supposed to have met some friends, but they flaked and there I was, banished from the teenage wasteland of the upper rows and into the depths of dotted single seats a dozen rows in front. Obligingly, I took my seat next to another lonely old lady. As the infomercials and previews popped onto the screen, I desperately repeated in silence my personal ‘no laughing out loud’ mantra.

My laughter has been given many a grace period from many people. Though I try to abstain from a total outbreak of snorting, sometimes, I just can’t help it. It starts off with low giggling, a stifling of snorts and then out right belly laughter, along with the snorting. Once committed to the comedic cause of the moment, it’s a futile to stop it. The animal known as my laugh is loose and running amuck. Believe me, my family has attempted to stop the laughter in its tracks with, a harsh, “Shh,” hand gestures and “Mom, really, please be quiet!” Finally in desperation of actually hearing the movie or conversation, they demand I leave the room. It’s gotten so terrible; they have even suggested an intervention. The thought of a laughter intervention sends me into a tizzy and I roll on the floor, now at the age where gaseous eruptions join in the horrific display of nerdom. Imagining a room full of my family and friends, sitting and judging, trying to hold me down as they show slapstick, recant family jokes and comedy routines and make me admit the wrongs my laughter has caused them, the dinners I ruined, the family gatherings and the holidays I will never be invited to again, unless I seek help. My imagination runs over as I finally leave the room, drooling, tears streaming, on all fours and still laughing down the hall. My family turns up the volume or declares a do-over for their conversation before they were so rudely interrupted by the hyena-mom.

So there I sat, trying desperately to stifle my giggles and my reluctant movie-partner leaned over to “Shhh” me. Familiar with this term, I apologized and was abruptly “Shh-ed” again. The stiff patron attempted to teach me movie etiquette five times. A gruff gentleman behind us became so aggravated with her disciplinary actions, he told her to close her pie hole. Yes, he actually used the term, “Pie-hole.” This term sent my flash-drive into overdrive as it scanned memories and imagination coming up with a Jackie Gleason character telling Alice to, “Shut your pie hole.” Immediately, Alice reaches into the ice box and throws a pie in Jackie’s face. Of course, this just added to my already delicate state of being and my giggling immediately turned into quiet snorts. An entire row of patrons glowered at me and I was”Shh-ed” yet again from Miss Frigidaire. Mr. Pie hole leaned over and actually told us he would escort us from the movie if we both didn’t shut our ‘Pie-holes.’ The echoing snort broke out before I could grab it back, Miss Frigidaire tried in vain to declare that she and I weren’t together and Mr. Pie Hole actually started to shake his fist at us. To which she of course contested that he was threatening her and he of course countered with, “Oh ya wanna see a threat, huh?” Shaking both fists and telling her again to, “Shut her pie hole.”

The shaking of both fists did it, reminding me of an Popeye cartoon releasing the full-on nerd snort laugh from me and causing some patrons to join in the laughter and a few others to become angry. I could hear my daughters’ voice, somehow through the lofted noise that I created, mumbling, “Please mom leave, just leave, please mom, leave, now, leave…” Before I could leave, an usher came to our seats and escorted Miss Frigidaire, Mr. Pie Hole, his wife and I out of the movie. On the way to the lobby, Mr. Pie hole demanded I pay their movie tickets without their senior discount of course and Miss Frigidaire declared that she wasn’t a senior. To which, you guessed it, Jackie Gleason reincarnated told her to, “Shut her pie hole.” This sent me into my usual bout of snort laughter. Studying the man through my now red, tear streaked face, I would gather this is a guy who is a couch jockey, only eats out on coupon days and thinks a great anniversary present is a vacuum. Miss Frigidaire huffed off into her Honda Element. Mr. Pie Hole jetted out the door, wife following exactly ten paces behind to what I would assume to be Dodge.

My friends showed up just as the Pie Holes were leaving. After enlightening them as to why we wouldn’t be going back into the movie theater until the kiddies got out, we decided to do the next best thing: People watch at Walmart. See? Nerds. We usually travel in packs.

Night stands and Naughty thoughts

2009-02-08T20:39:00.000-08:00

The night stand has such an innocent name. Most people have a night stand as it comes with the bedroom furniture. Since a young age, the "night stand" had revealed itself to me in its true form as the naughty drawer (I was visiting a relatives home, snooping), evoking strange thoughts and new ideas.

Being married since the ice age, we have a naughty drawer. Most couples who have been together for any number of years have such a drawer. While single, most naughty drawers contain contraceptives, lotions, candles and perhaps a thong or two. Even in pubescent newlywed bliss and blindness, the combined items of individual sexuality can be found in the naughty drawer. The proximity of the naughty drawer is of utmost importance. In the heat of the moment, no one wants to get out of the warm bed and walk, exposed, across the room or into the next and grab whatever is necessary to carry out a night of passion. It the same concept as to who loses the bet and has to sleep in the wet spot.

As relationships age, so do the items in the naughty drawer. Since the birth of our children, we use it as a make shift rite aide; flashlights, candles, massage oils, cold medications, earplugs, Kleenex, some old Christmas stocking stuffers I seem to annually misplace, an industrial-sized padlock for our bedroom door and a boom box. BB King’s opening serenade is immediately followed by several groans from our teens bedrooms, "EWWWWW! Not again!" Why be so obvious? The reasoning is simple: To insure celibacy in our teenagers (we are still counting on the gross factor of humping parents to dance in their heads and that their libidos haven’t quite kicked in) and self preservation. Long ago in a galaxy far away, our children were safely tucked into the young hours of the evening. My precocious five-year old daughter, crawled out of bed, answered a phone call from my sister and when asked where I was and what I was doing, answered, "She and daddy are breathing, giggling and talking in their bedroom." We will never live it down. To this day, my sister will call, snickering, asking if she is interrupting any breathing and talking sessions.

As the anthology of our naughty drawer spans before my marital lifetime, I can see into the future and the contents turning it back into it's former self: A night stand. The use of romantic enhancements will evaporate into accumulating rite aide items with the added old fart shopping list: Ben Gay, Viagra, KY jelly, Hemorrhoid cream, reading glasses, ace bandages, teeth and large cotton granny undies. Being a frugal person and I would assume in my old age, I’ll probably use my former thongs for dusting. Waste not, want not.

Currently our naughty drawer has evolved into something that is desperately kept from our kids, therefore it is also secured. When we get in the mood, we secure our bedroom door, and upload the latest BB King CD. Our new strategy dictates to wait five minutes for the inevitable knock from our nosey teenagers who were perfectly content on their computers and game boys just moments before. We answer gruffly, telling them we are busy and turn up the volume, anxiously awaiting for the, "Ewwww, not again" groans.Satisfied that we have a few moments of uninterrupted bliss, we turn down the lights, fold back the covers and crawl into bed. My husband reaches into the naughty drawer to retrieve our small ice chest. As our fingers touch through the ice, we simultaneously grasp our dove bars. Anxiously unwrapping the bars, we bite through the chocolate, sigh satisfactorily and savor the realization that we have an entire carton at our disposal, thus ensuring at least ten minutes of rapture.

A new day

2009-01-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

A new day which has long awaited is coming to our country. Tomorrow, January 20th, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of our United States. He offers to our country a new face, both young and hopeful, yet also determined to transform the country into a more united states. On that note, it seems this country; our wonderful United States has, in its usual unintentional, big, boisterous American way, gone into Obamanic Thrust. We are united alright; united in outlandish and crass showmanship that most of our adversaries and allies detest us for.

The new rage for Presidential inauguration spectators are various souvenirs of hats, flags, pins, buttons, iPods, cell phone bling and unmentionables. You can even go online and buy from Amazon, a piece of Presidential history. I would imagine in just a few short days, the onset of YouTube images of Obama-girl in her sparkled Obama thong, totting safe sex amenities will break any firewall and commence the onset of waterhole gossip and office forwards. Though I would agree, the best marketing tactics are those presented by opportunity, it is over-the-top Obamania.

In addition, our Nations capital is now overrun by the throngs of appearances by the big wigs of the music industry, and celebs (not to mention those artists who outwardly shout to the left of politics). Sort of an Oxy-moron mantra of the man who professes that he wants to unite us without the ramifications of class, age, sex, creed, race, lifestyle or political agendas.

The parties started last week upon the arrival of several celebrities, the only ones who could afford the $1000 a night hotel rooms. Even the Jonas Brothers, who in my humble opinion, can’t sing worth beans are anticipated to show up and at least gyrate their way into history. In all our celebration and overboard hoopla, perhaps we have done a disservice for our new President intent on uniting this country? Do we really need to get the latest Botox treatment just for our spot on the mall, even though we would be watching with thousands of our countryman our new Presidents face across a large screen? I don’t know about you, but the last person I’d want to stand next to during a Presidential inauguration is someone whom I have seen plastered across the media as one who has acted badly in public, whose inauguration attire probably exceeds my salary, spends their holidays not with their families but in St Croix, has dogs instead of children because of choice and has said they want change, hope and smart politics and yet doesn’t reflect that in their own life. It is indeed a celebration, but are we celebrating in bad form?

I find it interesting that this newly elected President, the first black President of our country unintentionally overshadowed this precious day, Martin Luther King Junior Day. Though there are celebrations that this country has always held for MLK day, it almost seems underscored by all the hoopla of President-elect Obama’s inauguration. Barack Obama didn’t elect (excuse the pun) this date of the Presidential term. And I would venture to say that Martin Luther King Junior wouldn’t have it any other way. To be outshined by the first black President of the United States, is what Martin Luther King Junior had envisioned in his, ‘I have a Dream’ speech almost 46 years ago.

I didn’t vote for Mister Obama, in fact I didn’t vote for a president this year. So, I resolve to uphold my oath to myself that date in November, seemingly so long ago: That I will continue to pray for this dynamic man and his family. That he continues to look to our God for answers and that he continues to uphold what his vision set for him to do and I pray that our forefathers, including Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, continue to have great and enormous influence on any decision President-elect Obama makes. It's a new day in this country and no matter who you voted for, the best thing to do right now is pray and have confidence that our fellow countryman (and women), have voted for the best of the best.
And afterall this pomp and circumstance, ridicules celebrity hoopla dies down, Obama can get to work.
Oh-and one more thing, a sign that Obama is going to do well in his new job, he looks to one of the wisest people in his life: On several occasions, when the media verbiage crossed and he and his wife disagreed, he looked to his wife and said in quiet resolve, “Yes dear.”

Eight Crazy Nights

2008-12-22T23:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first day of Chanukah festival of lights and though I am not Jewish, I appreciate the miracle and hope those eight lights represent. Just as Christmas is a miracle to Christians, the Festival of lights is recognition of the miracles and hope of God. Christmas has always been a mixed bag of dynamics for me: Emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and physically. Lately, I have had to grasp at my faith as though grabbing feathers in a tornado. Emotionally, I waver between the joy of what this season and all its traditions brings to the sorrow of missing loved ones passed, the grief my dysfunctional family sows upon me and the frustration at being nickel and dimed to death for every basic living need, in addition to the added cost of Christmas. My health takes a toll as colds, flu and other fabulous illnesses circle me like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.

It was difficult to embrace the joy of baking our traditional fudge with my children as I worried over the cost of ingredients. I have a great job, get paid well for doing something inconsequential and I still come up short…then I feel enormous empathy for those without income. This year before the Christmas break, the schools were all about charity which is great, unless technically, we could qualify. Because of karma, I purchased two gifts for make-a-wish children, just so not to piss off the higher powers. My sons class adopted a soldier, so I had to buy Costco-sized Tylenol and gum. My daughter has six teachers which adds up to six presents. By the time I was able to shop for my family’s gifts, I had twenty-two dollars left. I find it a struggle to be gleeful when wrapping my kids presents, concerned that I couldn’t get them this, that or the other this year because of finances. Elation should be my mindset since my kids are not greedy kids at all, in fact they have told me that they really don’t want or need anything for Christmas. As my very poignant 15-year-old pointed out, “Mom, it’s silly really. All that stuff is not the reason for Christmas. Why do the stores think that adding a few snowflakes, Christmas songs and puppies in their commercials make the ordinary stuff we use every day, look special for Christmas?” Amen sister. I should feel pride and relief that my kid feels this way; instead I feel even more guilt. Shouldn’t a kid like that, get everything she deserves? Battling my third cold this season didn't get me in the mood for a Merry Christmas and I was snippy towards my kids as lack of R.E.M and a head full of snot gave me a bitter scrooge face. Bah Humbug, indeed!

Add to that my compiling sense of doom as the day approaches when we have to pack in eight Christmases in five days to accommodate all our dysfunctional relatives. This includes inconveniencing me and my kids so we won’t “interrupt” my pedophile relative’s household. Grandma will meet us in the mall, so the pedophile can channel surf, comfy in his house. The apple didn’t fall from the tree and my dear kids, (like me), detest shopping. This will be a real piece of joy. Whatever. Wish I still drank. Every Christmas, I make the same wish, sending up to God, Santa and even the Easter bunny a distress signal: I wish we could just jump on a cruise and forget the whole thing. Alas there-in lies the rub, the ghost of finances past, present and future. So I continue this game of going through the motions of Christmas.

Like most families we decorated for Christmas. Since we were going to be gone, it was a majority vote in our house to forgo the tree. We have twenty-two years of Christmas anthology attached to every piece: Snowman pillows I won at a bunko game (before I was kicked out, story to follow), Icicles made of fiberglass we got at a shop in Monterrey, our door wreath I got a the dollar tree our first Christmas, advent candles we’ve made on the beaches of both Bodega and San Simeon and mismatched ornaments. Even though we voted on the absence of a tree, I managed to unpack a few ornaments and hang them about the house. There I was, innocently singing along to Chipmunks Christmas when I came across Sylvia’s spiders. Sylvia had made intricate crystal beaded spider ornaments and enjoyed entrancing my kids every year with the story behind the spiders. She lost her battle to breast cancer two years ago. http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/gallery/chrspid.htm

Just as Alvin reached the line of “Hoola-hoop,”all I could do at this point was cry at missing my friend and what a miracle she truly was. Sylvia accepted me. We were polar opposites, yet she and I loved each other and embraced our differences. When one stops and think how many true friends one has, one can come to the conclusion that those friendships are indeed miracles. I am convinced that God puts people in our lives. We are all so diverse. It takes a certain personality, ego, chemistry and mood to be true friends with someone. I’ve met a lot of people I’ve liked, right from the start, but few I've befriended. True friends just accept you, walk with you, don't try and change or mold you into what they believe is right. They are just your friends.

Tonight, as I said goodbye to another friend, Valerie, destined to be another best friend had we more time together, I counted my blessing in knowing her. Though we’d only known each other a short time at work, it was clear that we clicked and our acquaintance graduated to a fast friendship: I will miss our paperclip wars, La Comida payday lunches, arbitrary giggling, movies and confidences. Valerie just accepted me. Valerie had the nerve to abandon our blossoming friendship to fall in love, make wedding plans and will move out of California. After an all too brief afternoon of shopping, eating and a movie it was time to say a tearful goodbye. As we hugged a million times in the drizzling parking lot, my faith was gradually restored. And, as I drove out of the parking lot, watching her car disappear for the very last time, Adam Sandler's song about Chanukah came on. I began to see with new eyes, the miracles of this season. It was a miracle to get my job, it was an amazing miracle to have met and befriend such a fantastic person like Valerie and I am hopeful that this technology will keep us in arbitrary giggling heaven. Knowing this, I can put away my bitter scrooge face and brave the weird Christmas I will embark upon. I can enjoy the miracle and hope of this season. May you enjoy the eight crazy nights of the Festival of lights or your Merry Christmas and God Bless us, everyone!

©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff December 2008

Band Camp News: Constipation: It can happen to you!

2008-10-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

Band Camp News: Constipation: It can happen to you!: "http://www.imeem.com/alkalyne/music/BfMrRS_f/weird_al_yankovic_a_complicated_song_constipated/"

Constipation: It can happen to you!

2008-10-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

Anne held hostage, day eight. My pain threshold is high, but I wasn’t prepared for the mind-numbing-waking pain directly behind my knee cap. Post-surgical mending is tentative at best. Relenting after wimping out of the painful throb, I pop the Codeine and then, poof! I feel groovy and the love. The pain subsides and I am a nice, complacent woman, hear me whisper. I managed to self-clean (complete with shaving), help my son coherently edit an essay and I became more of the mom my kids dreamed of: The “Yes-mom.” After all, we had dinners coming to us from my super-mom friends, what did I have to complain about? Unfortunatly, a lot of the meals consisted of gaseous-inducing foods which led to more of my following problem.

If only someone, anyone had warned me that Codeine is cumulative and constipating. About the third day after surgery, I felt the urge to visit a room normally reserved for contemplating the universe. My first indication that the second movement of the Anne Wycoff Concerto wasn’t going to happen was that two hours in the think tank only produced a numb butt. I attempted to visualize some inspirational scenes from movies: Flushed Away, obviously the entire movie gives enough ‘think-brown’ material. Jurassic Park, when the guy ran from the car and sat on the pot to unsuccessfully hide from the T-Rex. Sparticus, the scene of all the Roman soldiers lounging around the steam room. 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Dr. Floyd reads the directions to the anti-gravity toilet. Along Came Polly, Ben Stiller going through everything that can and will go wrong in the bathroom.

It’s funny what your mind races to in times of desperation. I made the mistake of then flashing to Dirty Jobs. One would think that of all the sewers, wrong ends and poop-infused scenes in all of America Mike Rowe has visited, those scenes alone would warrant some reprieve from my porcelain bus torture chamber. But alas, since I do have a major crush on Mike Rowe, the effect was opposite and all I could do was fantasize that my crush and I were holding hands along Pier 39, eating ice cream. Remembering the real reason why I had time to relish in one of my favorite fantasies, I turned to concentrating on more pressing matters. My face contorted to something between a combination of Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem and Brittany Spears appearance in last years MTV awards as I attempted a push that only succeeded in convicincing me that I gave birth through my back-end to a small African Elephant---ugly! Finally, with the help of Weird Al Yokovic’s song: Constipated (reluctantly, I admit, I know all the lyrics) I managed a small, short-lived success of butt air emission. On a scale of one-ten the fart was a five, emitting not only good tone, but more important, adequate relief. I sat for another hour, waiting in anticipation that the fart was a prelude to something more grandeur. Sadly, it wasn't.
So, my new mission because I chose to take it is to warn any and all pain relief users and abusers: Constipation, it can happen to you!

So tonight, although the wonderful cheese and broccoli casserole my friend Cindy made for us looks delicious and tempting, I am going to indulge in a carrot smoothie.
If you happen to get in on the wrong end and pitfalls of Pain Killers, try going to the following for inpiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76knh7D_0QY

http://www.imeem.com/alkalyne/music/BfMrRS_f/weird_al_yankovic_a_complicated_song_constipated/

Halloween heroes and Pain relief

2008-10-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

Hello this is Anne’s brain in black and white. This is Anne’s brain in black and white, on drugs...any questions? Recovering from knee surgery sucks! Anne held captive day two.

Two weeks of purgatory is required and I sit on my rear, accumulating cellulite and new rolls. As I stew in the same stiff position (insert obvious male arousal joke here), listening to the media coverage of campaign vomit, I realize that I’m screwed out of one of my favorite holidays: Halloween. I love Halloween! As a kid, my favorite costume was Wonder Woman. I relished in the fact that my Wonder Woman power bracelets could deflect any boy cooties and unwarranted weird friendships with a flick of my wrists.

The ghosts of Halloween past seem to creep into what’s left of my grey matter and I recall being Cat Woman, Tarzan and the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz. To me, it seems that Halloween is a definite parade of alter egos, of the possibility of what one can be, of what one wants to be. In one way or another, our own definition of a hero. There are no rules or regulations. Last year, I was hero to myself and my kids, coming up with three costumes under twenty bucks. Fashioning my character after SNL’s Superstar, I went to a naughty Halloween party. My alter ego, little Mary Katherine Come-Lately, was a hit, complete with pigtails and a mini-mini-plaid school-girl skirt (under which I wore some bright red satin boxers-see? Naughty). I jumped into furniture yelling, “Superstar!” and vigorously smelled my armpits. The next day, I helped my kids with their costumes and we carved jack-o-lanterns. While we trekked to our Church’s Trunk-or Treat party, the kids costumes were recognized as a Confederate soldier and The Corpse Bride, sweet success of costume frugality. Halloween costume recognition enabled me to emerged from the depths of costumes-funds lost up to the status of creativity found heroine.

Yep, Codeine is a narcotic and I am feeling Frankenstein blue about missing one of my favorite holidays. Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t be up to crashing into furniture this year, but the last straw that broke this scarecrows back, was that my kids no longer needed help with their costumes nor did they want to carve jack-o-lanterns this year. They just need a taxi service. “You’ll be able to drive by then, right mom?” My daughter, now fifteen, is attending an all girls costume/hot-tub/sleep over party. My son is going to our church’s Trunk-or-treat with friends and then attending an all boys sleep over at “one of his posses cribs.” This year, my Halloween celebration is going to consist of greeting trick-or-treaters, gorging on codeine and candy while watching, 'It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.'

So, I sit, contemplating the universe which is usually reserved for a few moments alone on the pot. The surgical pain though narcoticly bearable, nags at me, but the sitting really gets under my skin. The Molotov cocktails of daytime TV is excruciating. I can’t believe Maury Povich is still skulking around the depths of daytime television. Sadly the consolation prize of landing on the Spanish channel and giggling at our Hispanic soap opera counterpart's acting is short lived. No wonder we are a nation of fatties and Xanax abusers!

There is only so much crap I can endure from daytime TV, U-Tube and email forwards from well-wishing friends and family. I am a captive audience for forward spam and good intentions gone bad. My numerous fan base wants to relieve me from my post surgical encroaching boredom and most of them think forwarding me U-Tubes of the Carol Burnett show is helpful, but after twenty times of watching Tim Conway attempt to flub everyone's lines with his comic relief, it becomes apparent why comedy has, dare I say it? Evolved.

Even the SNL skits have reached my monotone limit. How many times can one endure the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin act? Sadly, I also discovered that my beloved Dirty Jobs CD’s couldn’t save me from the pitfalls of post-surgical boredom. Besides, watching Mike Rowe is like foreplay for me. Dirty Jobs should have a disclaimer for women in their 40s: Don’t watch alone or batteries required.
One of my friends, a single gal, owner of fourteen cats, never been hitched and still lives w/her mom, has decided it is her mission to send me forwards of the Kathy comic strips. Opening her email is like opening an anthrax envelope: I try not to sound like Dick Cheney as I scream into the echoes of my empty house: Where’s my gun? Cruising around face book isn’t safe either. My single cat lady friend is always on, waiting for the next, um, victim to show up on line and then she pounces into chat, about everything, forever. I’m just not a chatty Kathy type. I try to recall, where in the world I put those Wonder Woman bracelets...

It’s not like I don’t have anything to do, however, being the anal retentive housewife/mother that I am, pre-surgery: I scrubbed, cleaned and organized the entire house to spare myself any guilt of an inept motherhood (well, that and I really didn’t want my kids to ask me while I was stoned out of my gourd from post- surgical drugs, “Mom, where are my cleats, my bat, my art supplies, etc, etc.” I may have responded, “They are in the dogs yard, under the car, or in the pool”).

Re-reading The Secret Life Of Bees and two other novellas keeps my mind working on a sublime level. I’m organizing my photos for the umpteenth time but I will never make the Creative Memories album of the year award. Still tackling my new play Karaoke Tonight, , but I only get in a few cognitive lines before the inevitable Codeine stupor kicks in and then the dialogue starts sounding like a Hemingway novel.

My friend Kathie, fellow stinker extraordinaire and fabu writer pointed out: November is National Novel writing month. Oh brother! I took the bait, attempting to jump off the great novel-writing bridge. I’ve written a paragraph and it took the obvious turn of play writing as I struggled: Jessica, lost in her own sorrowful thoughts, pushed the stroller across the deceptively happy park as leaves and giggles from children wafted across the hot blacktop, (Jessica holds back tears as she crosses center stage right). Suddenly, a sharp shrill of a dog’s bark wakes her to consciousness (Jessica looks stage left sharply, jumps back)....The adage of write what you know has new meaning for me. I'm still under the impression that a novel, a really good novel has to have some dark, dramatic element. The only way for me to write dark and dramatic is to involve the depression which is slowly seeping its way into my mind set due to the narcotic affects of the codeine. That and sitting on my fat arse for way, way too long and then, my ridicules attempts at novel writing indeed, start to resemble a Hemingway novel.

Hemingway had it right when he said: As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. And then I remember: I have two weeks of dinners coming our way thanks to my Wonder-women girlfriends-heroes all! Surrounding us in spaghetti, chicken and sloppy joes with dessert..not to mention that my Wonder-women super heroes drive all the way up here to Hillbilly-ville and deliver. Real super-women take-out, gotta love that!

Suddenly, my warped sense of humor flies like little Mary Katherine Come-Lately towards, not a sofa but a nano-second of genius: Who says a novel has to have dark and dramatic? Maybe I'll try my hand at the silliness of Romance novels? Flicking on the first season of Dirty Jobs: Sewer Inspector and Pig Farmer, I type with inspiration and sheer, novel genius :

Jessica holds the crimson rose between her veneers, ready to jump into Fabio's arms as the music sounds and crowd cheers. It is 'Dancing With The Stars' all new twenty-fifth season and the momentum builds as the Tango erupts from the Electronica DJ, "Now! Jessica, Now!" Fabio urges as Jessica takes a flying leap into mid air only to briefly land and spin on her head. Confidently regaining her composure as Fabio drags her by the arms across the stage, Jessica realizes this was the moment she has fallen in deep, obsessive love with Fabio. The crowd roars, the judges are on their feet in standing ovation as Jessica looks up, tears streak her face and yet, the crimpson rose still intact between her teeth, she winks at her biggest competitor, 150-year-old Cloris Leachman, as the two exchange admirable grins, ....

dark comedy, dark comments

2008-09-26T16:22:00.001-07:00

Hey band camp fans and members!

Happy Friday band camp readers and members! It’s been a long week! OK, first I want to thank everyone for getting the word out about auditions for The Husband Whisperer. Our cast and director are fantastic! (Was there ever any doubt?)

Just a note for whomever, “anonymous” is from the comments sections of the audition announcements of this blog: Wow! Someone forgot to take their V-8, or maybe prune juice? Perhaps they need a happy pill? If you go to the trouble of leaving a comment, can’t you at least come up with something more than, “This isn’t a black comedy,” to add? I am assuming anonymous is involved in some way with the production of our play and that said, anonymous should have the courtesy to email me and leave me some tidbit into your experience in the theater. Perhaps even some constructive criticism of the script?

Not to give anything away, but a "black" or dark comedy in my mind (though I can derive from your lone comment that you possibly think I have no brains), encompass a dark current throughout the script. It does, but scantily. We didn’t want it to be morose or foreboding. In life and on the silver screen, isn’t there enough production of “Quentin Tarantino” type of storylines, plots and thinly veiled threats?
So, in my defense, miss or mister anonymous, I can only say, yes, you are correct. The Husband Whisperer isn't a "black" nor dark comedy traditionally speaking, but it has some "black" and dark comedy in it. Hope you all have a fabu weekend! Mark your calendars for our play, The Husband Whisperer..a um, dark comedy about imperfect women attempting to create the perfect man.

http://www.birdcagetheatre.net

Tumors and Termites and Transvestites, Oh my!

2008-09-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

In, The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum cleverly leads his readers down the yellow-brick-road as his fantastic dichotomy of characters experience fear, peril and heartache while discovering their own faith, happiness, and triumph. Sometimes, like Dorothy, I have a witch mad at me (usually in the form of every day, domesticated peril) and well, it inevitably gets me into trouble. Following my yellow-brick-road, I walk on the edge of fear, not exactly sure of what will happen. But also like Dorothy, I walk it and have a very keen sense of happiness despite lions and tigers and bears.

About six months ago, while galloping along my yellow brick road, my right knee demanded attention from the doctor. After an hour and half wait and a three-minute exam, my doctor observed that it was arthritis and obesity. “You shouldn’t be running, until you lose thirty pounds.” OK, now let’s be fair, all the doctors up here in hillbilly-vile are Seventh-day-Adventist. In other words, vegan athletes and their goal is to morph all non-believers looking as close to an anorexic runway models as possible.

According the national weight control registry, my ideal weight should be 140 lbs. I need to lose about ten pounds, not thirty to be “normal.” Three months ago after popping Advil every two hours due to nagging, aching pain down my shin and around my knee, I sullenly relented to my humanity and revisited the doctor. The usual lecture of my weight was followed by an alarming notation: “You seem to have a cyst or tumor on that knee, let’s get it X-rayed.” My surgery is scheduled this Friday to remove the tumor. Surgery sucks! I am afraid of losing control while I'm under. However, that fear is readily replaced by my biggest fear: That I will mumble some audible, horrific confession coming out of the anaesthesia (Like the time early in our marriage, in a fit of rage over a lapse of toilet paper replacement on my husbands part, I put his underwear in with my red clothes, calling it an "accident" that his tidy whites turned bright pink. He ran around with pink undies for about a week before purchasing new underwear.)

Two weeks ago, my daughter came running into our room screaming. Apparently the ants came marching two-by-two along her wall behind her bed. Upon careful examination, these weren’t ants, they were termites. We worked quickly, removing her possessions into our family room and her bedding onto the couch. It was Deja Vu all over again as Emily had packed her belongings twice already (along with everyone else in our family and town) due to fire evacuation. It’s even more discontenting for her as her private empire is now on display in our family room. After an in-depth inspection by my husband and his colleagues (all are construction/plumber and Hvac dudes), it was determined that the termites got in through water damage. “I’m frightened Auntie Em, I’m frightened,” was my mantra for two days while the guys determined the cost of our termite and water damage. Visions of accumulating bills and our house crumbling beneath us, danced through my head as I wondered if Centerfolds clients were into cellulite. Thankfully, my fear (and second career as an out-of-shape, one-legged stripper) was put to rest as the assessment of the damage was only in Emily’s room and would only cost us in parts. For now, I’ll settle for a temporarily pissed-off teenager and construction noise.

Last weekend, one of my girlfriends was celebrating her 21st birthday, for the um, fourth time. We have been on many a yellow-brick roads together. So, to show her a good time, I gathered (in my mind’s eye at least) the entire cast of The Wizard of Oz (with the exception of the wicked witch, my mother-in-law and I don’t hang out). It is the rare occasion that makes me wear a dress and all that encompasses: The shaving, the plucking, the lotion, the push-up bra, the girdle, the deodorant, the make-up, the heels, the hair straightening, the glitter-whew! My only comfort was the fact that all the guys we were paying homage to, had to go through even more prep-work. We trekked in all our glory to the Drag Queen ball in Chico. I had to cover it anyway and well, while in Rome? Or in this case, Oz? I had only been to a Queens ball in San Francisco and I Gotta say, a lot of those Queens were very hot. Many times I had questioned, where's the beef? Trying really hard not to commit the ultimate Queen's ball fopa and ogle.

My homies and I enjoyed the show of he-she’s and guesstimates as to who is dressing which direction. The gowns were absolutely fabulous. The he-she’s, well, they were all nice girls who apparently made their own clothes (actually they went to Ross). One of our favorite songs was a tribute to the tune of “Fever” adequately replaced by fifty-million lyrics of “Beaver.”

We were treated like royalty and my birthday girl even received a song, several complimentary drinks and had to introduce herself as the “straight-birthday girl.” She in turn, feeling toasty and the love, introduced us as, “All her bitches.” Apologizing later, she said through slurred chuckles that she couldn’t remember all our names. The entire evening went great, no attitudes and no gays against straight animosity. I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any cat fights, yet I realized my biggest fear was put to rest: I was never mistaken for a dude, trying to be a girl, but really a dude. Instead, I was just a girl in a dress.

Sadly, one of our cast of favorites didn’t escape my fear. We left my friend Tami alone for just a moment,some to shake their ass with the queens and the rest of us to help another friend to the bathroom (It is weird when you are in the bathroom and you hear a tenor in the stall next to you.)

Tami is gorgeous, could be a super model, a tall, beautiful girl, very feminine blond. She went all out and wore a glittery, white formal with heels to die for. She should have been on the Kodak Theatre red carpet. Unfortunately, she made her dramatic debut by becoming a victim of my fear turned reality as a couple of queens morphed into real girls, A.K.A: Bitches,
"Look, the prettiest girl in the place is sitting all alone by herself....a she's got hairy legs.." to which the other drag queen said "How do you know?" and she replied "I can hear them swishing when she walks"..

If there is one thing that makes the yellow-brick-road journey less scary, it is when you have your best friends walking arm in arm with you through the scary forests, valleys and yes, even golden, slippery halls of life. Misery loves company? Possibly, but I'd rather Dorothy that theory and declare that it also makes the trip better.

All rights reserved, Anne Wycoff Sept. 2008

The Husband Whisperer Auditions

2008-09-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Calling all actors!
Even if you've never acted before, come get your feet wet!
"The Husband Whisperer" Auditions
Men and women of various ages.September 15, 16 and 17Th @ 6:30PM, Birdcage Theatre Lobby, 1740 Bird Street, Oroville, Performance dates:November 21-December 7Th
Bring a 2-3 minute comedic monologue to read.

This is a dark-comedy full play, uses sparse profanity but some adult themes through-out. A good, clean, hilarious play even my mother can come to! Forward this to any and all interested in acting or theater.
Thanks,
Anne

What's in a name?

2008-08-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

What’s in a name?

So what’s the big deal? After listening to more than twelve months of Obama defending his Christianity, lack of Muslim, and Islam ties and adamantly aligning himself with pro-American western views, he has chosen a guy named Biden, Joe Biden. It’s almost like, Bond, James Bond. Together they could be: Obama-Biden. I can see John Candy now in the movie, Uncle Buck, “Bug? Insect? Are you seeing the similarities?”

I see Obama’s reasoning here: He went for the old fart card which, he played rather well, appeasing the Kennedy and former first Bush fans for this election. Biden gives a faux conservative flex of this power team muscle, enabling those older voters who can’t handle another four years of Bushisms and ride-em-high politics to vote for someone who refuses to use Grecian formula. But come on-really? Obama-Biden. Doesn’t have the same appeal as Bradgelina. Instead it has an after taste, like Biliary.

Obama Bin Laden? Are you seeing the similarities? I could see Obama strutting the last of this campaign leg, confident that his Obamamania politics will downplay the unfortunate name partnership. Sounds to me like someone forgot to use the P.Q.I (Predictive quantities indicator)of the G.L.M(global language monitor) of Obama’s campaign committee. I mean come on! Does anyone on his advisory committee play scrabble? You're just missing three letters which could be substituted with blanks. And when it comes right down to it, by the time we get to the polls having been inundated with campaign telemarketers, commercials, mind-numbing media coverage and political endorsements, our minds are blank and we could probably fill in the blanks with campaign vomit.

It’s kind of like this real estate agent I met, just her first name, Lola. A few times after she showed the house across the street, she asked if I wanted to go out to lunch. Something about the way she asked launched my Gaydor into overdrive. Gracefully declining, I was happy to see she had moved on from the area, no longer gawking at me as I hastily retrieved my mail and we avoided a potentially awkward conversation. And then it all made sense when I saw the SOLD sign with agent listed as: Liptrap. Lola Liptrap.

Obama Biden. The name speaks for itself.

Close Quarters versus Closed Quarters

2008-08-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

Having recently rejoined the work force, I finally became accustomed to the usual politics, ethics and process of working in an office setting. Urinating in a Styrofoam dixie cup in front of the Human Resource officer at my new job, should have been a clue to this child of the eighties that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Privacy in the work force is dead. Close Quarters are now politically correct. Strike One: I couldn't produce urine. Strike two: I had to hum 'Day-O' to produce urine. Strike three: I peed on my new nylons. Dammit. Five dollars spent at Rite Aid down the toilet, literally.

My first day of reconnecting to what my mother calls 'The real world' was spent getting eyeballed by my future coworkers as they filed and searched for medical records in comfortable scrubs. While they disiphered just who the hell I was and if I'd cut the mustard, I was making a grave office fashion fopa. I was in heels, wearing a skirt, blouse and new nylons. I didn't get the dress code memo of 'office casual, scrubs acceptable' and spent most of the my first work day, trying to bend in a ladylike manner without giving the sparse male co-workers a peep show into old lady town. All this being accomplished while answering to the code name: "New girl." Hey, at my age, anything with "girl" addressed to me will get my employer a twelve-hour day for a minimum wage.

Three months later and I gotta tell you, me likey this job. It is tedious, fast-paced and bonus: Everyone at work is fabulous! I may still be in the honeymoon phase, but my boss is cream of the crop and everyone works very hard at their job. I have yet to note pettiness, gossip, the office slut, the office tattletale, you know? The usual suspects of today's office counterparts.

My sister, Lynn is not so fortunate. She's been in her current position for several years. Besides the fact that hers isn't just a job, it's a career. She takes it very seriously, having acquired a BA and finding her niche, her reward is working in financial services for a noted Charity and dealing with an odd co-worker directly next to her cubicle. Scratch that, he's not just odd. He’s a whack job.

I can remember back in the day, when an office space consisted of four walls and a door. A good solid door which encompased four glorious walls that kept the weirdos at bay. Visits would be on a limited basis. No one knew that your co-workers picked their nose in the privacy of their offices, talked endlessly with family members, looked through the JC Penny Catalog for eight hours, worked a half hour and got paid for an entire day of work. Now we have cubicles, not much privacy and big brother surfing your computer for internet abuse.

Lynn's co-worker has a creepy, disarming affection for Lynn. Her antennae are up around this guy and she wisely divulges scant views of her life to him. Being a private person anyway, Lynn discloses little about herself which, to some sensitive folks comes off as snobby. "Bob" (name changed to protect the guilty) has decided that Lynn doesn't share enough about herself to him and he reported her to their supervisor. The supervisor conferred with Lynn and has demanded that Lynn be more soft-spoken with "Bob" and forego the sharp replies to his prying questions she also must be more open with "Bob." Given the ridiculousness of the situation, Lynn has no choice but to adhere to her supervisors wishes. I'm sure if that if Lynn warranted the situation and if we hadn't come up with the idea listed in the following paragraphs, Lynn would take it to the next level. She doesn't take any crap.

Lynn’s reprimand is yet another sad commentary on what American workforce has become. Oh, big Brother isn't just watching... he is demanding that the working person act as the Chinese demanded their people for the Olympics this year: Pleasantries only. Must be kind, loving, appear as an open book. Hey, it's the year of the Rat after all. Wealth, charm, and most important, Order. An office certainly can't operate without order, and personal differences create conflict. So mind your "P"s and "Q"s, smile, conform, initiate redundant conversation so you may ease your whacked out co-workers brains that they are part of your life. Life+Job=order.

As most of you have discovered Lynn and I are best friends, we share everything. I have heard her complaints of "Bob" over the last few years, they had become worse and more concerning. This new complaint tops it off. There was only one thing to do:
Revenge.

My suggestion was to embrace the new Lynn. Pull "Bob" aside and confess that she has a fetish. "Bob, I have to tell you something a little personal and well, I really don't want anyone else to know about it, so please, whatever you do, don't tell people that...
Whenever someone takes off their shoes, even in the brake room, I have an overwhelming urge to reach over, grab their shoes and give it a good, long sniff. It takes everything in my power to not do that very thing during a meeting. I've had this horrible affliction since childhood." Pause for dramatic affect, fake a sniff and snob then, "Oh, it feels so good to get it off my chest. Thank you "Bob". Thank you for listening."

Lynn topped it off with something better and perhaps easier to prove in front of "Bob" because God forbid, he reach down and offer his destestable shoes for her to carry out her compulsive crime.

"OH no, I got it," Lynn laughed triumphantly, trying to contain herself, "I could tell him, in the same manner, maybe when Mona(Name changed to protect the guilty) my supervisor goes to lunch, that 'when no one is looking,
I secretly take out the lean cuisines and frozen entrees in the staff room
... and lick the tops of the plastic covering and their boxes."

Our office spaces have become almost intrusive. In some offices, pictures and personal items must be approved before placing them on the cardboard surface of the cubicle. Freedom of speech and expression has defined rules and regulations. All that pent up energy has to go somewhere.

So be weary people, do you really want to know everything about your co-workers? Is it wise for us to check all the internet sites our quiet co-workers roamed in order to ascertain that they aren't surfing porn, but they have visited the Hello Kitty site far too many times for normal people in their forties? How about the fact that the new divorcee has the Jonas Brothers clip art on her desktop? Is it healthy to be inches away from a chronic nose picker, wihtout kleenex and suddenly, your cubicle is looking a tad green? And, is it me, or do the Lean Cuisines and Smart Balance entrees really have a layer of refridgerator condensation, or is it something else?

Just remember; still waters lick deep.

All rights reserved/Wycoff August 2008

The Husband Whisperer

2008-08-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to make it official: I've had four people recently ask me: Yes, the rumors are true, my play "The Husband Whisperer" makes its debut at the birdcage theatre in Oroville, CA. Co-written by the fantastic and fabulously reluctant comedic genius, Lori Kennedy and directed by the renowned Lucille Beaty, this play uses scant profanity and yet, it is truly hilarious! There are some adult themes, and sexual references, so patrons 18 and younger may feel uncomfortable.

A dark comedy about imperfect women attempting to create the perfect man. All Rights Reserved, Kennedy/Wycoff,Copywritten and registered WGA # 107392

So, I know it is early, but Fall is fast approaching, and then we slam into our Holidays. Why not stay close to home and entertain your house guests with a short trekk to the theater?
Mark your calendars and actors are needed. If you're an actor or know anyone who is and can commit to a full play, the auditions are in September.

Here is the link:http://www.birdcagetheatre.net/schedule.html

The Twelve Anticipations

2008-06-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

The Twelve Anticipations

Ahhh summer. The long dog days and lamp-lit evenings teased me into thinking that this would be the year that I’d actually use the word, “vacation” in our summer vacation. Visions of my feet dangling in our pool danced in my head. The thought of NOT having to bake yet another dozen cookies or car pool a load of children to their school, youth group or sports destinations tantalized my very soul! Perhaps this would be the year I would really be able to finish one of sixteen novellas loaned to me by my girlfriends?

Remember counting down the days until that final school bell rang? I don’t know about you but I had my locker cleaned out by Easter vacation, parties planned to perfection and my boy stalking routes down to a science. I remember how the last few days of school lingered like the smell of garbage. I just wanted out of the putrid offense to my being!

Now as an “adult,” my summer vacation is of course limited to short holidays checkered throughout my kids very short two-and-a-half months off the school year frenzied merry-go-round. The price of gas, short of change and ever looming food prices forced us to vaca at home. Though it is a drawback, my kids and I actually relish in the prospect of gardening and having friends sleep over. I am actually looking forward to camp Wycoff which basically entails a dome tent on our lawn and smores on our stove. Perhaps we could catch up on our movie and game nights? My lazy summer fantasy continued with one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite essayists, the endearment of summer and all that it promises.

"I must have leave in the fullness of my soul to regret the abolition, and doing away with altogether, of those consolatory interstices and sprinklings of freedom, through the four seasons, the red-letter days, now become to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days ...
These were bright visitations in the scholars and clerk’s life, far off their coming shone.”Charles Lamb

Unfortunately, I am the reincarnated version of our dearly departed iconic character, Lucy Ricardo complete with fiasco's of good intentions and schedules gone very, very wrong. The following is why some species eat their young and bite the heads off their mates.

On the first countdown day to summer vacation my dear family gave to me
A transverse break of my son’s right wrist after he played “Thunder dome” wrestling game

On the second countdown day to summer vacation my dear family gave to me,
Two last-minute field trips that needed my chaperon capabilities and a transverse break of my son’s wrist

On the third countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me,
Three last-minute school functions that each needed 2-dozen homemade cookies, two chaperoned field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the fourth countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Four bounced checks, three school functions, two chaperoned field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist

On the fifth countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Five farting boys
(who needed rides),
four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist

On the sixth countdown day to summer vacation my dear family gave to me
Six teacher presents to buy, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the seventh countdown day to summer vacation my dear family gave to me
Seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents to buy, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the Eighth countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Eight loads of laundry, seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the ninth countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Nine assignments looming, eight loads of laundry, seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the tenth countdown day to summer vacation my dear family gave to me
Ten commandments nearly broken, nine assignments looming, eight loads of laundry, seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the eleventh countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Eleven election solicitations, ten commandments almost broken, nine assignments looming, eight loads of laundry, seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

On the twelfth countdown day to summer vacation, my dear family gave to me
Twelve overdue movie rentals, eleven election solicitations, ten commandments almost broken, nine assignments looming, eight loads of laundry, seven girls not sleeping, six teacher presents, five farting boys, four bounced checks, three school functions, two field trips and a transverse break of my son’s right wrist.

All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff, June 2008

Mikerowe Biology

2008-05-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

Mikerowe Biology

A few weeks ago, my friend Kathie and I met at one of our favorite hang outs, Juice and Java. We often chat with our waitress/starving student, a wonderful young lady named Cassie. During that morning’s chat we learned Cassie was taking some pretty hairy classes to become a dental hygienist. “Yeah, I’m taking Micro, it sucks,” she remarked with the enthusiasm of a dental patient.

Mike Rowe? I thought, Wow! I love that guy, they really have a class on him? Is it producing? Is it hosting, directing, journalism? Can I take this class? Do they actually offer that at Butte, or perhaps CSUC? Oh goody! Clapping my hands with glee, both Micro theologians puzzled at me then and continued their discussion into the pitfalls of Micro.

It was early, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, besides, the animal known as my imagination was loose and running amuck. Wow! I wonder if he’d actually come as a guest teacher, or speaker, then we could go to lunch, perhaps on a date? God! What would I wear? Where would we go? Oh, the downtown market and then Christian Michaels, no, no too presumptions, Franky’s? It’s cute and intimate but not too over the top. Oh, how do I explain that to Tom? ‘Sorry I dumped your ass for Mike Rowe ’ I could tell Tom it was Micro-Oh And then the realization,
Micro-as in Micro Biology.

The air deflated from my great, red, fantasy balloon. Happily, I never uttered these thoughts, otherwise I may have been ushered from Juice and Java in a straight jacket and Lithium induced semi-coma muttering “Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe,” all the while my poor friend and waitress shaking their heads thinking I had some traumatic experience with a slide of bacteria or perhaps my microbiology professor (who sadly resembled a protozoa). It was fun to think about though, Mike Rowe as a class and in a way, he is in a class by himself.

I am a bonafide nerd because the study of Microbiology was fun for me. It blew my pea brain that there is a tiny world, functioning almost as we do: Eating, living, reproducing until finally, dying (Remember Osmosis Jones? Great movie about life on the inside of well, us).You can decipher what you will from my Micro biology grade (which was an ‘A’) but keep in mind, that my professor really did resemble a protozoa, specifically, athlete’s foot. Poor man had psoriasis.

Though most microorganisms are viewed negatively and associated with some of our illnesses-such as strep, remember that yeast is also a microorganism and fermenting yeast, makes beer.
Let’s compare, just for entertainment alone, Mike Rowe to one of our highest known micro organisms: Bacteria.

Bacterial cell walls consist mostly of carbon and protein...hmmm so are Mike Rowe’s cell walls...in fact I would have to say that all of his cell walls at one point or another have been in and absorbed carbon and protein. Escherichia coli, the fancy name for pooh.

This of course leads me to another comparison: The Slime layer. Yes, bacteria actually secrete a slime layer (as protection) outside their cells, and Mike Rowe has, in almost every episode of Dirty Jobs, been engulfed in slime of various origins. Although, Mike Rowe could never personify slime, he is, well, just too damn cute, decent, wonderful, etc, etc, yeah, as if you haven't guessed, I gotta a major crush on him.

Bacteria store their excess nutrients (carbon) in the form of Polyhydroxyalkanoate and Glycogen(one can be found in cheese coating the other in sugars and starch). Mike stores his excess nutrients in a slight tool shed. Hey, it’s nice to know that we (the female sex) aren’t the only ones battling the bulge.

It’s unavoidable, we all get gas, even bacteria, politely termed: Gas Vesicles which keep them buoyant in their soup de jour. I know with the involuntary digestion of all the vestibules of pooh Mike has had to endure over his five successful years of hosting Dirty Jobs, he has acquired his fair share and then some of gas. Unfortunately, the gas doesn’t keep him buoyant.

Speaking for myself, I know that Mike has magnetism and since we are doing a comparison of Mike Rowe to a microorganism, Bacteria also have Magnetism. Although for bacteria, it isn’t to attract the ladies. Magnetosomes allow the bacteria to align itself with other bacterium for maximum oxygen intake and hey, magnetosomes are species specific, so a bacterium cannot hang out with different bacteria. Just like Mike can’t really marry a pig, even though at this juncture, a sow (to be named later) is seeking piglet support from Mike because of a thwarted episode of Dirty Jobs involving pig insemination.

What separate us from the single cell microbes and other animal organisms(with the exception of some males of our species) is our ability to communicate: Just as our ancestors relied specifically on pheromones to communicate that they were in the mood, bacteria have been found to communicate that they too are horny or perhaps, just want to share a carbon or two. Just ask the Bacteria Whisperer, Bonnie Bassler. She recently discovered that Bacteria have an intricate communication system, involving pheromones, communicating with their hosts, strategizing and enabling other bacteria to enter the host as a kind of monitor position.

Mike Rowe is a great communicator. He wouldn’t be employed as the very fantastic host of Dirty Jobs if he sucked. He has pheromones and knows how to use them, as evident by the reception he receives from his female guests (and some male guests). He communicates with his staff, he strategizes with his producers, and camera people to get the best story and he enables the Dirty Job of the day to take over, thus displaying to the audience a gateway, and a view into their world, if only for an hour.

Yep, I surely do enjoy Mikerowe biology and you should get brainy with it and check him out, Monday nights, 9PM discovery channel. I may be a tad bit obsessed with him, just consider this advice from a nerd gone wild. You may actually learn something new in the dirty department!
©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff May 2008
Sources:
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are unicellular or cell-cluster microscopic organisms (Fungi, Protists, and certain Algae).
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek observed through a single-lens microscope (of his own design) micro organisms.
Wired magazine, November 2004, Bonnie Bassler, the Bacteria Whisperer
Dirty Jobs: Hosted by the fabulous Mike Rowe, New episodes Mondays @9PM, Discovery Channel

2008-05-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Good Vibrations
By Anne Wycoff

I hate cell phones. I detest their vibrations, photos and illusions of communication. I think it’s a pathetic commentary on our civilization now that we have become a society of cheery beeps and ringer tones. We personalize those annoying rings as if they were a concoction of Starbucks coffee. Sadly, in today’s world of nano second lifestyles, a cell phone has become a necessity.

My loathing for cell phones was cemented with the surge of the head-set style. I was in a grocery store a few years ago when the new head-set style came out. As I picked through the fruit, I heard a gentlemen say, “No, not that one, the other one is better.” Thinking I was in the presence of some green grocer guru, I switched my choice of peaches and asked, “Is this one better?” “Well, that’s your call, I’d go with the one we looked at before.” I was confused: First, the green grocer guru tells me to switch peaches and now he is saying it’s up to me and maybe the first one would be better. I just don’t have that kind of time. I want to give the produce a slight squeeze, make a decision and move on. I finally chose the first one, piled more into my cart and turned to give the green grocer guru a piece of my mind: “Thanks a lot buddy, what do you do all day? Stand around the produce aisle stalking bewildered, domestically-challenged women just so you can feel superior?” Turning in time to see the green grocer guru utter in mid air, “Well Mike, I would seriously consider the consequences of that choice, but again, it’s your call, OK, well-let me know how it goes. Nope, I’m halfway through the list, my wife will kill me if I don’t get it all, OK, bye.”

Panicked, I took a sudden interest in the melons as he passed by.

Cell phones have come a long way since then. The coveted new razor and apple ‘everything’ cell phone will eventually become obsolete, replaced with a microchip inserted into our Veneers. We will be able to just lick one tooth and instantly, an image will appear behind our eyeballs or a phone number will be dialed.

The biggest dilemma for cell users has been, to vibrate or not to vibrate. I’m not gonna lie to you, I am a big fan of anything that vibrates, but sometimes, the vibrating option can get annoying. We were at the movies the other night and my phone vibrated. It was my kids, wondering if they could have more ice cream. “Is the ice cream, house or any person on fire?” I asked in a heated whisper. “No,” they answered in meek voices.
“Then don’t call unless there is a real emergency.”

The reason to vibrate is so you can screen calls (well, one of the reasons to vibrate). It’s the modernized version of an answering machine. You can see who is calling and on some phones, you can listen to the voice mail they are leaving and decide if it’s worth answering. Naturally, I needed to take a course on modern technology just to initiate and locate my vibrate option. And here’s a ding to your ring-a-ding-ding: The Geek Patrol, nationally known for making house calls for techno emergencies, won’t come out for cell phone quandaries.

For those of us techno-challenged, downloading songs into our cell phones should be an award-winning feat. After several lessons from my kids on downloading songs, I use my cell phone as an ipod. The i-pod look deters some unsolicited conversations at the gym. However, since I exercise very early in the morning, there they are: Every old geezer in town and they are full of wisdom and chatter. After all, they get up at four, eat a huge breakfast with all their cronies, then make their way to their water aerobics and free weights class. Elderly are territorial about their weight machines. The other day, I nearly received an old lady ass kicking because I broke the sacred rules of engagement at the gym: Don’t talk to anyone with an ipod and never forget to sign in for your turn at every machine. Adding to her disgruntled demeanor was that it was nearly ten A.M., you know? Nap time. I noticed she had a new apple ‘everything phone’. Learning my lesson, I keep my phone vibrating and my tunes on full throttle. This precaution doesn’t deter the pervie old farts: These old guys use enough Grecian formula to rot their brains, eluding them into thinking they still got it and their old lines will work on women half their age.

What bothers me the most about these confident elderly jocks, is that they actually think someone like me(stuck in middle age) would be interested. This morning, one old stalker (who doubles the Ewwww factor by resembling my father. Complete with the old man, mayor of Munchkin-Land eyebrows) followed me to the inner thigh weight machine and proceeded to stare at my eyes: My aureolas.

After a few grunts and dramatic weight lifting on the floor directly in front of me, he lowered his magnified eye wear and exclaimed, “Wow You’re in great shape, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone stretch their legs that far.” I pretended not to hear him with my earphones on. It worked for about two seconds until he stood up and lifted one of my earphones, “You’re in great shape Would you like to get a coffee after our workout?”

Pretending my cell phone vibrated, I exclaimed, “Oh sorry, I have to get this.” Jumping up, I completed the dramatic effect by walking to the window for ‘better reception’ and had a one-way conversation until my stalker went on to another pair of unsuspecting aureolas.

Getting back to my inner thigh machine, I noticed a 20-something eye candy walking my way. He had abs of steel, sculpted biceps, gorgeous brown eyes, and a phone similar to mine with the earphones dangling across his buff shoulders. I smiled and said, “Good morning.”
Without missing a beat, he simultaneously nodded and inserted his earphones saying, “Oh, I have to get this.” He went to the window, giving me glances until my delusions of turning 20-something heads, evaporated.

Just goes to show you, good vibrations are in the eyes, pants and possibly thoughts of the beholder.
To get the download on cell phones, and cell phone etiquette, visit www.celldocs.com

©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff, March 2007

Hazerdous End To Finding Your Roots

2008-05-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Hazardous End To Finding Your Roots
By Anne Wycoff

When all is said and done, bragging about your ancestors may be hazardous to your psyche.
That I learned when I began a five-year process of piecing together my family tree with bits of information about my paternal grandfather. His mother had immigrated to California from Mexico. He had been in foster homes most of his life. At eighteen he had changed his name from Rivera (his mothers name) to Rivers.

A friend emailed me a link to the Latter-day Saints Genealogy web site. With, “Curiosity killed the cat, “ as my new mantra, I leaned close to my monitor and entered the data about my grandfather. I fantasized about my ancestors. Maybe they were founders of this country, inventors, scholars or politicians?
From a census taken sixty-three years ago, I learned about my grandfather’s birth parents. I had a surname for my great-grandfather. My great-grandmother also named him on my grandfather’s birth certificate. But I soon discovered my great-grandfather had remarried (or married) directly after my grandfather’s birth, so my great-grandparents were never married. The plot thickened.

I learned my great-grandfather had five more children after he remarried. One had a first name matching my grandfathers middle name. A coincidence? Probably not.
By this time, my bottom was numb, my fingers ached and my heart pounded as I raced through my lineage. My great-grandmother’s line had long since disappeared, but I continued to pursue the paternal side of my family tree. I found branches reaching from England, France and Portugal. I wove my way through the LDS links from Ellis Island to births, deaths and marriages in other countries.
And then, horrified, I stopped. At fifteen, Rosalia Marquesso Crappo had married some Frenchman fifteen years her senior. A gentleman by the name, Gerourd D’Manuar. Yep Crap and Manure. In shock, I pressed the print icon. Hard evidence mocked me. I hoped I made a wrong turn. I called my dad.
He roared with laughter.
“Oh honey, you have no idea,” he finally managed to say. Composing himself, he continued,
“Your Grandfather kept in touch with his father through the years.”
“Yes Dad, so what?” I wanted to get to the bottom of this.
A long bout of giggling ensued. My Dad had to catch his breath.
“Well, your Great, great-grandfather invented the first flush toilet.”
There ought to be a law, I thought. Our family crest was probably a knight sitting on a toilet bowl, holding a plunger as his scepter. Knights of the toilet bowl
“So how come I am not the Princess of Pooh?” I was hoping to flush some kind of restitution.
“Your great-grandfather did inherit the patent, but he sold it to some plumber and then lost the whole load in the great crash. It all went down the drain”
Yes, my Dad actually used the word’s load and drain. And here I am, the descendant of the inventor of the crapper. It could have been worse: My ancestor could have invented the enema.

In closing, I would say if you dare risk damaging your psyche, go to the LDS genealogy site at www.Ancestry.com.
Who knows? You may be the descendant of Major Joel Connolly, the first Chief Inspector of Sanitary Engineering.
©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff, November 2006

Smoking ashes

2008-05-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Older but goodie, especially since today is a RED FLAG DAY!

A Burning Question about smoking ashes
By Anne Wycoff
We’ve all heard the saying, "One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure," but one mans garbage shouldn’t be another man or woman’s phlegm. This subject of phlegm came up, so to speak the other day when I attempted a run at Bille Park. I couldn’t even get out of my car. The smoke from neighboring bonfires was so thick, it engulfed the grass area and the would-be track. Since there was a slight breeze, the smoke wafted a bit however, since the bonfires continued to burn, a cloud continued to invade my potential running area and threatened to suck up oxygen anyone(including children and adults in the playground) were using.

Since I am fond of breathing and running I took my endeavor to the high school track and accompanied several other runners. After my first mile, bilows of bonfire smoke invaded the track and the song, Nowhere To Run To by Michael McDonald, kept playing into my oxygen-deprived brain. I was starting to really get choked up, nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide (the track became blurred), got nowhere to run to baby, (my eyes started to itch), it’s not love I’m running from, it’s the heartaches I know will come (my chest started to hurt), cause I know you’re no good for me,(I started to cough), but you’ve become a part of me. It was at this point, I realized that I was the only fool trying to run in the ominous cloud and I was forced to leave and go to the dulldroms to finish out my run on the gym treadmill.

The arsonists (I mean old men) have nothing better to do than to rake their yards and put what their poor eyesights entail to be rubbish in large piles and lighting up. I know it’s old guys, I’ve seen them, we have three up in our neck of the woods. Every Saturday, they get up at four, rake their yards or worse, use the weed blower and make a huge bonfire. After their nap, they rake and blow more rubbish(one neighborhood old fart actually has his friends drop their garbage to burn-who knows what he’s burning?).

I figure it’s their way of looking productive. This is the same MO my husband uses while cleaning the kitchen: He moves the dishes around, stacking them neatly on one side of the sink. He even goes to the trouble of putting all the silver ware into a large cup and filling it with water. There! He has cleaned the kitchen!

These old coots are doing the exact same thing, but not only are they contributing to a useless and meaningless task that could, I might add be completed during a drizzle or even rainy day, they are also contributing to our greenhouse affect. Now, don’t get me wrong,

I am not some yahoo who thinks we need to chain ourselves up to trees and collect benefits (this sounds like something I may have seen in a play ;0), Nope, I am just a running nerd, who would love to breath during my run and not cough up something that looks like road kill.

Perhaps I am turning into a Don Quixote of sorts? I’ve had fantasies of running all over town, toting a large pump full of water and screaming, "Phlegm be gone!" while I saturate each bonfire. I also thought about drinking six gallons of water and urinating on each bonfire. I’d bravely outrun the old men in their boxers, black knee socks and orthopedic sandals as they screamed, rakes raised, "Don’t poke her until you see the white of her ass!" This last fantasy however, reminded of another painful encounter with the new waxing sensation and it was quickly cast aside.

Instead I confronted one my "old guys" while he proudly stood over his creation of soot and smolder and a huge cloud matched his huge prideful grin as I approached, "Nice day, isn’t it?" He stood like Pa Kettle, rake cuddled under his gloved hands. "It would be nice if you weren’t killing us off with this smoke, why do you do all that? That’s screwed up man, just screwed up!"
"It’s my yard and I’ll do what I want, besides, I have a permit."
He pulled up his shorts and held his head high. It was all I could do to not drop my pants and relieve myself of my third cup of coffee.

The city of Chico has an ordinance of no burning allowed, not even if you go to the trouble of obtaining a permit. Instead, the officials decided that Chico should become like most cities in California; each household should have a garbage, rubbish and recycle container. Why haven’t the towns of Paradise and Magalia adopted this policy? If you said money you are incorrect-and you are, I might ad, the missing link. Yes, initially it would cost the county (In Magalia county, Paradise, city) some money. But it’s going to cost them more with all the asthma, allergy and pulmonary problems the bonfires of the cranky’s is going to cost. Taking into consideration too, the fact that most these cranky concoctionists of the foul don’t supervise their little sparks, we are talking increased chances of a residential and potential wild fire. In addition to all this hullabaloo, the Federal Clean Air Act alone should make some Paradisian and Magalian officials shake in their boots or sandals.

We might, if we are lucky, receive almost three weeks of rain for the remainder of our really wet season.

My burning questions are these, where there is smoke, isn't there usually a fire?
And,
why is my ash smoking?

Love,
annabanana

Motherhood Moment

2008-05-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

A Moment for Mothers

Did you know that Mothers day was inspired by Julia Ward Howe, a civil war activist as a heartbreaking, united momentous outburst by women everywhere to end war and have peace? I assume she was tired of watching her country’s sons and sons friends killed in action, weary of watching every woman around her sullenly bury their children. A moment to somehow recognize the silent outrage of mothers, sending their offspring into war.

I find it even more intriguing that we only take one day, one moment of calling FTD and eradicate our depreciating credit to remember:
The woman who gave you life(or in some cases gave you a new life),
Perhaps she even:
Held your hand walking across the street
Wiped your butt,
Held your head while you were vomiting,
Made the owie feel better just by kissing it,
Taught you how to sew, salsa, ride a horse, ride a bike, or fish,
Defused battle 999 of sibling world war,
Taught you to drive,
Showed you how to apply cover up on what you considered teenage social death by zit,
Talked you through a friends death,
Stayed up with you and shared a gallon of chunky monkey during your first heartbreak,
Helped you write your college entrance essay; two days before it was due,
Convinced your father that your future husband was really a great catch,
Told you how beautiful you looked even though you had a nasty cold while trying on your wedding dress,
Helped you during your first born’s first weeks, even though you said you didn’t want nor need her there,
Held your broken body through chemo, radiation, and co-collaborating and deceiving your kids into thinking you just “have the flu,”
Helping you through a marriages break up, break down and break apart,
Encouraging you to keep writing even with your first writing rejection letter,
Encouraging you to keep writing even with your eightieth writing rejection letter,
Telling your mother-in-law to “blank-off” because you are perfect, no matter what condition your kitchen is in,
Recognizing your sisterhood into the battle of the bulge and sympathizing with you,

Your many and ongoing triumphs and tears.

I find it very intriguing that we give this Mother’s day holiday credit to a man: President Woodrow Wilson. Though his intentions were good, his National recognition of the day was marked for the boys who died in war. Just a moment, of honoring the biggest sacrifice a mother could ever make.

Shouldn’t we call a spade a spade and say what Mothers day really is? Mother day is a mini-moment for amends, a sad, small attempt for recognition of what is a mother. For some of us, it’s a day to expel our guilt. A day to be thankful, but it’s only a moment. Sadly, our spouses, siblings, offsprings and we ourselves may be guilty of thinking that taking that moment to recognize the mothers in our lives, as one more thing to check off our ever expanding, chaotic list of life. However, as I am learning in my wise-old age, it’s only a moment.

Though truth be told, I usually receive for my mother’s day: Handmade cards made from Cheerios, pink colored flowers that may resemble ducks, or palm trees or money in the form of certificates for hugs, dishes done, and dinners to be made. Though the recognition of my motherhood falls mainly on people in my household with limited spending income, it is the moment of thoughts that really count.

It’s easy for me to slip into nostalgia this time of year: My son was born on Mothers day, he is now twelve (sniff) and instead of a big birthday party with the usual pinata, balloons and a horde of extended families, he just wanted to “hang out with his homies at the park with hotdogs.”
That was the moment I came face to face with my evolving motherhood: I didn't have to buy matching paper plates, goodie bags, nor balloons. Just hotdogs, nerf guns, nerf ammo for the occasional adult nerf target. Most of my friends congratulated me, “You have now entered the zone of no more birthday fuss.” I felt inexplicably sad and useless.
This year, I didn't get to go to the dollar store and pick out matching plates and napkins nor goody prizes or candy for a pinata. This year, I sent my husband to Winco for hot dogs. At the park, the scene of the crime (my son's first birthday was celebrated at Bille Park), my husband took the “homies” on a short hike, I sat on the bench, feeling very alone. I listened the sounds of a sun-drenched park on a perfect Spring afternoon. The family next to us celebrated simultaneous birthdays of granny (age 96) in a walker and baby Gabrielle, her first birthday, also in her walker. Both birthday girls dependant on family members to bring them their cake, juice and help them sit upright. Both birthday girls laughing, a baby glee from Gabrielle as her butterfly balloon floated by her lit face and Granny, chuckled reaction to Gabrielle’s glee.

I remember like it was yesterday (doesn’t that sound like something your mom would say?): My husband throwing our chubby, baby daughter up in the air, her squeals of glee wafting through the gentle waving grass tickling everyone's ears across the playground. Relatives old and young, laughing and enjoying a moment of eating pink roses from birthday cake on matching pink plates and my beautiful daughter, in the first and last dress she ever wore. She’s a tomboy now, hardly putting her beautiful red waves back in a ponytail, let alone wear something feminine. As I fast-forwarded to my sons’ first birthday(I realize with shock that I am sitting at the same table and park bench), I remember Winnie-The-Pooh theme balloons, plates and cake, cousins, grandparents and tonka trucks galore littering the picnic tables as toddlers and adults poured onto the generous lawn to play and romp.

Zip, it’s gone, and I am in the present noticing dammit, I have my first age spot on my left hand. We only have these moments, these ever changing, evolving moments in motherhood. As our children grow up, out and away from us, establishing independance, we have our motherhood moments marked by a tide of change, folding like waves into each other. Choking back my tears, I realize how fast, how fast, they try to tell you, how fast this motherhood goes. I had listened with haughty ears because I was twenty-something, my whole life, family, love pouring out of me, into me and I was a triumphant, ever flowing cup of motherhood. My cup is now full but all too soon it will be empty save for a few cobwebby memories. They will drift through the catacombs of what is left by a miracle of my grey matter. A smell, perhaps of a BBQ, will dance along a spring breeze into my nose, the sound of a baby’s laughter will bounce and register into my deaf ears, the sight of pink roses I will recognize on a cake, the touch of a fuzzy blanket against my paper thin, wrinkled arms, will charge and define an Alzheimer moment of some random memory in my motherhood life. I will only have a nano second to grasp and recognize that fragment of a birthday, family gathering or holiday and then, poof! It will be gone and I will succumb to eating my oatmeal with help and having my Depends changed.
I will just have a moment to remember that I had a fantastic motherhood.

So this Mothers’ day, take a moment, to call, email or better yet, if you can visit your mom or someone close to you who is a mom, is like a mom, or who wants to be a mom, put down your to do list for the day and take a moment for them. It’s only a moment.

All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff May 10, 2008

Wax On, Wax Off

2008-04-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, this is a repeat offender, but many of you have asked me to post this so here it is!

It’s official: Spring is here and so are the endless list of our home improvements. Our house needs painting, inside and out. Of course there are the normal, weekly chores: Hedge trimming, grass mowing and weed whacking. This brings to my twisted mind, the art of Spring hygiene. Ahh yes, the fashion dread for most people my gender: Swimsuit season. Paying tribute to the looming fashion season, I trekked to Bushwacker Mo’s, a small, trendy spa in Ukiah and I was met with a bit of a fashion shock:

The new trend is to trim your hedge, mow your grass and whack your weeds down to the roots. To eradicate any doubt, I took a survey from ladies of various ages. Eighty percent say that bald is beautiful. This brings about a lot of confusion: How bald? Is it the military buzz, or completely Vin Diesel? Who started this trend anyway? Probably the same people who dictate those fabulous fashions that only look great on anorexic run way models.

Most of us gals wait twelve years to get our hedges, lawns and weeds to grow. Now, everyone wants to kill theirs off with unusual forms of weed whacking hair removal, wax and shaving lotion. My brain automatically went to that warped place where I asked myself, "OK, so who in their right mind becomes a hedge trimmer, eight hours a day for a minimum wage, plus tips?"

The entire conversation one has with the weed whacker while they accomplish their task had my imagination working overtime: Do you make small talk while she is placing the warm wax and then ripping the hair out in all the wrong places? Do you stifle the scream? Perhaps in some cultures it’s OK to let out the archaic squeal after the wax is ripped, kind of like belching in public. Weed whacking isn’t for sissies, especially if you get what is fondly called, the Brazilian wax job. To me, it sounds crudely close to the Cuban neck tie. We are talking ripping hair out from the Glutenous Maximus Grand Canyon. I couldn’t imagine. It’s difficult enough to make small talk while your feet are in the stirrups. Will Numz-it be available? Is it more expensive to be wimpy?

Given that eighty percent of my poll voted for the trend, I decided a military air strip was the way to go, A.K.A.: Partial Brazilian. My journey to the feminist movement would stop at my low-pain threshold, even with the persuasive pro-bald arguments from the proprietor. Surprisingly, there really wasn’t much pain involved, with the exception of my wallet. Though Gilda, my Esthetician was as gentle as she could be, I still felt a sting of pain, handing over a twenty percent tip for what seemed to be a masochistic spa treatment.

Strolling around the pool at my health club, I was confident that my two weeks of rigorous Treadmill workouts and no visible weeds, would enable me to accomplish the modern woman’s exuberance.

I continued to relish in the after glow of my Darwinian movement as I made my way to yet another dreaded task: My dental appointment. I felt refined, enjoying my evolved leap into this new womanhood, until I noticed a slight tingling sensation happening south of the border. The tingling turned into a horrific itching. The itching turned into an obsession. While the hygienist left to get a new tool, I scratched and raked and twisted in my dentist chair, keeping an eye out for the intrusive hygienist. I managed to escape the dental office without committing a lewd and lecivious act of scratching my crotch in public.

In the privacy of my bathroom, I ripped my pants off to reveal the confirmed burn. Pinkish swelling of my bikini area told me to get out the aloe vera. This is an area that hasn’t been shaved in over sixth months. Some of my areas have never been shaved or for that matter, had never seen the light of day. Thankfully, my ancestory allows for a less hairy anatomy than my more anglo counterparts, so I won't have to endure (and repeat) this mashochistic ritual until the next swimsuit season. Reviewing this day made me chuckle at trying to be the modern woman and with the help and relief of aloe vera, I found my way out of the forest, so to speak.

Memory is funny sometimes: One can’t remember what one had for dinner, but can remember the small details of the recipe. My memory button cruelly hit act one, scene two: The dentist office had mirrors, everywhere. I remembered the hygienist and dentist smirking at me as I left. Flashes of laughter echoed after I closed the dental office door. I remember why I will forever be a traditional hedge, have long grass and wayward weeds.

Facts is facts Ladies: Shaving, waxing or plucking your “area” En Toto is not more aesthetic as most urban myths have us believe. In fact, most Gynecologist agree, that total removal of the hair is more harmful, causing in-grown hairs and skin rashes. In the last ten years, more women have visited their Gynecologist for in-grown hairs and razor rash issues than the usual health concerns.
Alternatives come at a hefty price, Laser hair removal lasts for six months and go from $500-up.
Electrolysis is permanent, but can take several procedures and costs more than the laser hair removal.
And last but not least, as most of us "seasoned" ladies should know: When a guy says he prefers the civilization of Brazil to a domesticated jungle because he gets "lost," then hand him a GPS, sign him up for the show, or better still, tell him dares go first.

For more information, you may contact your Gynecologist or go to www.webmd.com

Sources: Doctor Barbara Hameir, MD
Doctor Patrice Hyde, MD
©All Rights Reserved, Anne Wycoff, April 2008

Ya Ya Bitchyhood sister speak

2008-04-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

Sister Speak

My sister Lynn is three years younger than I am and had been the victim of my wicked humor and practical jokes in early childhood. However, during the height of our dysfunctional pre-teen hoods, we somehow united against the ravages of misery and developed our own language and silly sayings for everyday things. Often, we’d break into song about the most innate and ridicules, leaving our parents dumbfounded, driving them nuts and we did it at great risk, often provoking more abuse from the autocrat. For years, we sang a stupid diddy called, “Dee Dee girl,” a repetitive insult to the ears about a girl or Trump-ish man for that matter who had the unfortunate timing of crossing our paths with a horrible hair cut or hair style. Sort of a code for “Bad hair day.” Our mother had always taught us if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, so instead, Lynn and I sang it. This included the obvious bad hair style of any and all hair a baby has, stapled into a lone pink barrette atop a bald baby head. Is this supposed to announce to the world, “Yes, this is a baby girl,” or better yet to say, “well, yes, it is human, see? No scales nor feathers, but this one chunk of hair”(even though the baby looks like a cabbage patch doll).

Sadly, I became the leader of the Dee Dee girl cult by bestowing upon my newborn daughter the very same lone pink Barrett hair style. Of course for the first two years of my daughters life, she was to Lynn, Dee Dee girl. For two years, my daughter thought her name was Dee Dee, instead of her birth name, Emily.

Another thing we did to evade the pit of depression after our abuser’s wrath was our “Brain-dead” salute: When faced with an obvious stupidity of other people or if we just wanted to crack ourselves up, we’d put our left arm in a semicircle to our forehead and stick our right arm through the circle, waving it in small circles. No matter what we’d endure before, during and after a bout with an enraged abuser, we could always crack each other up with that bit. It left our parents perplexed, not understanding the giggles coming from what should have been the room of doom and punishment.

Most siblings (especially ones who have grown up in dysfunctional homes) find a mode of survival: A way to escape the destruction of human spirit and climb on top of the heap, laughing hysterically. Over the years we have developed this ability to make each other laugh into an art form. We have nailed it down to such perfection all we have to do to each other, is utter a “Dee Dee,” or put our left hand to our forehead that it will cause us to giggle until we pee. We call it, sister speak. Those who haven’t suffered abuse would naively call this behavior insanity. Indeed our husbands and my children gawk at Lynn and I during a sister speak episode and shake their heads: Time to get out the straight jackets, here we go again.

Although thankfully, Lynn and I no longer have to associate with intensely angry, dysfunctional people, when faced with insecurity, we rely on the silly relics of our childhood to free us from those angry embers. Lately we find new more embarrassing ways, songs and saying to deal with the odd dysfunction so many fellow humans seem to suffer from.

Recently, Lynn took me to Mendocino for a belated birthday (A.K.A Ya Ya bitchyhood) weekend. Before leaving, I paid homage to my mother’s home in which she bestowed upon me, clothing. Let’s just say that the clothes my mom so graciously gives me are top of the line, second hand thrift store faire. Faded labels such as: Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT. Though I do appreciate the gesture, I am really not a Lane Bryant, Izod and ESPRIT person. After pillaging through the stripes, plaid shorts and square necklines, I came across something that inspired a new phrase for my sister speak: My mother and stepfathers matching Gucci thong underwear.
EWWWWWWW!

After grossing Lynn out with the history of our new vocabulary word of sister speak, we arrived at our wonderful five-star Inn. We noticed there were a lot of elderly female guests. Our neighbors, are longtime Lesbian couple on a romantic weekend. Though that doesn’t “ewwww” us, we were invariably lumped in with the other twenty-something lesbian couples as we were: Number one, together all the time. Number two: Laughed and hugged each other and number three, stayed in the same room. What else are people(especially men with pea brains) supposed to think? So when men (BTW single girls, note to self: Men outnumber women 5-1 in Mendocino and Fort Bragg), started to hit on us in a bar, we just beamed at each other and winked, giving them the “ewwwww” phrase as we giggled profusely. This of course caused more confusion for the men, and subjected the poor fellows to a bout of even more belly laughs from us, the faux lesbian duo. All we had to do to crack each other up the entire trip was lean over and quietly whisper to each other, “Ewwwwww."

It’s not that we don’t appreciate a good measure of attention from the opposite sex, in fact, Lynn and I often come up with new and improved ways of gaining male attention. Usually it’s just fantasy and enlists skills we sadly lack. The second day of the great Mendocino escape of the Ya Ya bitchyhood sisters, we were on the beach, soaking up rays in our long underwear and flannel shirts(too sexy)! A gaggle of young male feti took to the beach, toting Corona’s and obvious buzzes. I alerted Lynn to potential eye candy with my very smooth, very covert loud purr of my tongue, to which she of course started laughing and I joined, with my snort-laugh.

As the Corona toting feti kept angling for attention from us (the only females under the age of eighty on the beach), we came up with several fantasy scenarios in which to entice the unsuspecting feti. The first was one of us was gravely ill and needed fresh air. However, not wanting to anger the fate gods, we eighty-sixed that idea and thought we could be wealthy cougars. However, since we were wearing flannel and neither one of us exactly cougar material, we moved on with a brilliant idea of: The invasion of the foreign femme fatale. Only, we didn’t want to risk that one of them knew Spanish or Japanese-the two languages we hardly know. So, we decided to invent a language, complete with Aborigines tongue clicks. After several practice runs, we were laughing so much at our greeting, “Hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo duck click lucky moo moo, click.” Then, I had to put a cherry on top of that greeting with the fact that maybe, we also had Tourette’s syndrome. So the greeting turned into,
“Hungu vu gaga lacky click dammit, loo loo duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo, click.”
We looked through our tear-streaked faces only to discover our potential victims had left. We figured they either thought we were on some really great peyote and weren’t sharing or the more obvious; we are crazy.

This weekend had glorious weather, wonderful food and the best housing so far on our elongated list of ya ya bitchyhood weekends. But the best part of the entire weekend was adding another ridicules array of vocabulary to our sister speak, “Ewww, purrrr, hungu vu gaga lacky click loo loo dammit duck click lucky caca-hell, moo moo.”

One man's junk

2008-04-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

One mans junk is another mans treasure.
This past weekend, it became clear that my husband(Tom) and I are opponents in that age-old argument of couples: Treasure versus junk. One of our treasures, our dear dog Lucky ran out of luck and experienced violent seizures last Thursday. Taking him to the vet cost two of my paychecks (that’s not saying much). Feeling frustrated at our monetary situation, Tom declared that we should have just put the dog down. “After all”, he said, “he is old and we can get a new dog”. That of course enraged the rest of the family and it got me thinking: I wish “Putting him down,” would have been an option for me when Tom went through knee surgery and four months of home recovery. After all, he is old and well ... .

After spending the day at the vets, the dog is diagnosed with Cushing disease and medicated. I guess it’s common in Great Danes and Labs and poor Lucky dog has both strikes against him. He is a mutt, old and a bit dusty. But we certainly wouldn’t get rid of him nor upgrade to a newer model. He is our equivalent of beloved family junk, in other words, pure Wycoff gold.

On Friday Tom left to help our family friend Don move out of his foreclosed home. A sad commentary on the current situation in our state. All your belongings have to be loaded up and pawned off on friends and relatives who will store them in the hopes that one day, the winds of favor will grant you property possession again. In the meantime, the temporary proprietors reap the rewards of storing your stuff. Don held a yard sale, but knowing him, it wouldn’t make a dent in the junk collection he vowed to “fix up” one day. I visited his place once, awestruck by the acres of machinery and pipes, accumulation of old cars and vacuum cleaners. At one time, Don even had a by-plane graveyard in addition to a collection of above ground wells. It was like walking through a weird outdoor art gallery. I guess in some cultures it would be considered modern art. After all, if people are paying through the nose for art done by an elephant, why not? Don is just like the character Fred Sanford in Sanford and Son, he saw potential in everything, even stuff that was rusted out, busted and left for dead. I however, don’t care for junk. Don refers to me as Tom’s neat freak woman. If I don’t use it within the two major seasons then it is outta here! Though not a Stepford wife, I do tend to keep a tidy house and I can’t stand knick knacks, they make me feel claustrophobic. My kids are forever squawking about my cleaning rampages. I have hauled several garbage bags of junk out of their rooms, all accomplished without them missing their favorite pipe cleaners, rocks and moldy twinkies. We now use rakes for the junk under their bed because of a moldy twinkie experience (I once attempted to retrieve what I thought was a fuzzy green eraser and it turned out to be, you guessed it)!

Late last night, I noticed a strange vehicle slowly backing into our driveway. The loaded down truck was teaming with junk, seeping over it’s sides so that the emblem on the side wasn’t visible. An enormous aluminum fishing boat sat atop a rusted trailer, they were bouncing their way backward into our driveway, nearly tipping over from the barrage of junk piled in it. Suddenly, I realized this was my husband, coming home from a weekend at Don’s. Might as well have been Weekend at Bernies. For all I knew, there could have been a body at the bottom of the pile.
He sheepishly got out of his pickup, slamming his door and nearly toppling a chainsaw tethered to the side. “Hey hon, can you back your car out of the garage?”
It is a curious thing when you can simultaneously think two expletives to shout, but just then my kids ran out of the house to greet their father. “Wow! That is cool” exclaimed our other Sanford in the family. “Is all this ours?” My son asked already determining the Ebay price for some of the items. This is the same kid who uses Legos as weapons of mass destruction against parents who dare trespass into his bedroom at night. “Well, the motorcycle and motorized scooter are ours, I got them at a steal and the boat, we can use and the chainsaws just need to be fixed up and we can sell them for profit.”
He rattled on, captivating our kids with each items history and potential.
It was all I could do to not clutch my chest and scream out, “I’m a comin’ Elizabeth...I’m a coming” (Sanfords old bit about having a heart attack and meeting up with his deceased wife). I kept envisioning that Tom would eventually need an intervention. Are there interventions for junkers? I suppose it would be along the lines of families that go through substance abuse interventions: We'd all gather Tom in the looming backyard/junkyard, our once pristine pool a vestibule of used tires, wet suits and swingsets. I'd have to recruit back-up and the only person close enough to Tom and who is (gulp) as neat of freak as me is (double gulp) his mother. Visions of our feme de muerte battles outweighing the junk intervention caused me to tank the entire idea. There had to be a better way! Go here for the theme song while you read on: http://www.sitcomsonline.com/sounds/sanfordandson.wav

After the kids settled down for bed, my tired treasure hunter secured his treasure in our backyard, complete with a tattered tarp. There was no way I was giving up my CRV parking space. Hell, in this job, I don’t get paid but I do get a parking space.
In this sitcom of our life, the role of Lamont is often played by me, the questioning, nagging, common sense character. Most men call that bitchy.
“So hon, how much did that bike and scooter set us back?” I tried to be as Lamont as I could, trick the sly fox into telling me his latest scheme gone bad so I could do damage control.
Besides, he was pretty tired, there was a good chance he would spill the beans.
“Oh well, that came out of my account, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
His account? He has an account? Anger turned to curiosity. I have an account too, but it is often used for frivolous stuff, such as: Kids clothing, field trips, soccer sign ups, my cell phone and oh yes, saving our beloved pets ass.

“So how much was the motorcycle and scooter, really?” I knew asking again would be pushing it but I just had to know. “Together they only put me in the hole for $700. But remember, those chainsaws I’ll sell as well as the oven hood, and besides, we can use the boat anytime we want.”
“And if they don’t?” I asked, pushing for a time limit for his new endeavors into the junk yard business.
He sighed, “I’ll get rid of this stuff before the summer.”

Wishing I still drank, I made my way into our backyard and lifted the tattered tarp, wanting a good look at Don’s treasures. Shining in the moonlight, they almost looked beautiful. The glistening of a chrome oven hood. A colorful array of paint chips fallen from the boat(Don had changed the name so often, it reminded me of the Norman Rockwell Tattoo illustration). The glint of steal chainsaws, shadows of various rusted out tool chests and the conjoined smell of metal and male perspiration. Our Lucky dog saddled up beside me to observe the treasure. As if sensing my disgust, he snorted and then shook his head, then cocked it to the side and winked at me. He was not made to be a junk yard dog. If anyone dared jump Lucky's fence to get to Tom's future junk treasures, then it would be death by saliva! He'd hold them down and lick them to death!
A Lamont moment hit me like a ton of bricks: If Tom didn’t get rid of this junk before the weeds grew over it, well then, with the help of craigslist, he will become a junk hauler(unbeknownst to him of course). As the theme song of Sanford and Son lulled me to sleep, I dreamed of my dog leaping and bounding among the sunflowers that will eventually replace Tom’s junk yard.

If you need junk hauled away, keep Tom in mind for future reference, however, if you can’t park your car in the garage, if your home resembles that of a mobile home estate sale, if you think an antique fire hydrant should go onto antique roadhouse, then you are a Sanford wife, husband or child and should seek immediate help.

www.1800gotjunk.com
www.junkhaulers.com

All rights reserved, Anne Wycoff April 2008

Band Camp News version uno

2008-04-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

OK, so one of my editors said I just had to have this done today, so here I sit, alone in my thoughts, my own version of hell with writers block.

All I can say is, the chicken is in the oven, the dishes are done, my kids homework is somewhat completed, my looming deadline approaches and slicing up a masterpiece seems so very wrong.

What's wrong with this picture?

Askew in the murky spaces of my pea brain....
Until next time, this is your fearless bandcamp leader hoping it doesn't rain until I can pull my knickers off the line.