I’ve thought Mel Gibson should be brutally crucified ever since I sat through What Women Want. So, if Mel’s new movie, The Passion of the Christ, actually had Mel in the starring role, I’d have to go see it.

As it is, I’m undecided on the matter.

For one thing, I know going in that this movie has ZERO surprises. I’m no Bible scholar, but I know the outcome of this one. The Christ dies. Horribly.

Now if I were going to make a Crucifixion movie, I’d have Christ get resurrected at the end. No one would see that coming!…Oh wait, what’s Easter about again? Nix that idea then.

Give me a minute. I’ll think of something…

Ok. Here it is. Christ rents and watches this weird, kinda creepy video that has a lonely wooden chair and some horses and a lighthouse in it. Now, unbeknownst to the Lord, everyone who has seen this video before Him has gotten crucified in exactly SEVEN DAYS from the day they watched the creepy movie! Isn’t that great?!

No?

There’s no pleasing you people…

Wait now. A thought is slowly edging its way into my small brain.

There was a reason why I started this post. What was it? I’ve gotten so far away from it now that I’m going to have to circle back around to find it again…

Voila!

ANDY ROONEY!

That’s what I wanted to talk about! Andy Rooney. Apparently, our old friend Andy is catching all kinds of hell for being sacrilegious. The new definition of sacrilegious is as follows:

Sacrilegious (sak ree lid jus) – Calling Mel Gibson a wacko.

Bored But Busy NEWSFLASH

Now back to your regularly scheduled wasting your time reading my blog.

So, yeah, Andy called Mel Gibson a wacko. Why would Andy do such a thing? Why?

Well, his enemies would have you believe that he says “crazy” things like “The war is misguided” or “Mel Gibson is a wacko” because he is senile and too old to even know what he’s talking about.

I have another view on this matter. I think he’s old enough that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we think about him anymore. I’d be willing to bet that he’s made his peace with his maker, and that he’s seen his share of war and wackos. He’s also been entertaining Americans for as long as I can remember, so in my humble opinion, he’s earned the right to call them as he sees them.

I mean, it’s a sad day in America when you can’t even call a wacko a wacko without having a bunch of wackos send you hate mail!

Would I go so far as to say that’s wacko?

Well, no, because I’ve said it far too many times already, but if I hadn’t, I might.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say that Mel Gibson is a wacko. In addition, Bill O’ Reilly is a wacko, Ann Coulter is a wacko, Rush Limbaugh is a wacko, Michael Jackson is a wacko, Jeffrey Dahmer was a wacko and is now a dead wacko. Charles Manson? WACKO! Oh yeah. The list goes on and on…*

*If it seems like I really enjoyed writing this post – especially the last part – it’s because I did. In fact, if I were a smoker, I’d have taken long draws off of a cigarette afterward. It felt oh so good.

Being lost searching for various amusements in a strange city is no fun. Driving behind a person who is lost and driving 5-10 miles under the speed limit so that she doesn’t miss a sign that could indicate where the hell she might be is also no fun. In fact, it’s annoying. That’s one of the reasons I owed Cincinnati and it’s surrounding areas an apology. I drove around being irritatingly lost every single day we were there. I irritated myself and I irritated others. I’m sorry.

The other annoying habit that I selfishly persisted in during our stay in The Big C is being a vegetarian.

Carnivores find vegetarians to be snitty little wusses. I know this to be true, because even my own mother grinds the word vegetarian between her teeth like it is a piece of bloody meat that she wishes to destroy with her mighty incisors.

While the animosity that my Kentuckian friends and relatives feel for vegetarians is formidable indeed, the hatred of our kind in The Big C is a vast monolith that blocks the very sun from the sky.
Of course, no one in Cincinnati expressed this all-consuming hatred aloud. But, there were subtle hints to this effect and I will most certainly elaborate upon them for you.

A Chinese buffet which boasted of an “extensive vegetarian selection” offered only white rice to me and my vegan husband. After discovering several pieces of chicken in the one dish that appeared at first glance to actually be vegetarian, we put down our buffet plates and walked briskly out of the restaurant.

Michael drove the getaway car to a Mexican place directly across the street. While I would have preferred to put more distance between us and the Chinese buffet we had just narrowly escaped, a quick perusal of the menu at the Mexican restaurant indicated we might be able to find something suitable to eat. I was heartened both by the large variety of bean burritos and cheese enchiladas on the menu and by the large margarita I sucked down in two seconds flat. I find booze to be oh so heartening.

But alas! We didn’t leave the loathing of the locals behind us when we rushed out of the Chinese buffet after placing our drink orders. No. The hatred followed us to the Mexican place.

We both ordered from the section of the menu that was clearly labeled “Vegetarian Selections” and we both ordered bean burritos topped with mushrooms. So, I was more than a little surprised to find huge pieces of roast mixed in with the mushrooms that covered my burrito.

At this point we were the opposite of “heartened”. We were disheartened and anti-heartened. Yes, we were actually protesting “heartened.” But, we weren’t on a hunger strike yet, so we just scraped the meat off of our vegetarian burritos and ate them.

Yeah, we could have sent them back, but I hate to do that. I dislike having spit and/or other bodily fluids dispensed onto my food, and I always assume that is what cooks do to show snitty vegetarians exactly what they think of us.

Are you beginning to see why I am sure they hate us in The Big C? I hope so, but I want to tell you just one more unpleasant food story.

On the night before our fated burrito dinner, we went to an eclectic caf� and my husband was served what he described as “a stir-fried salad.” I bravely tried a bite of it and he was right. The vegetables on his plate had no business being served in that mann
er. Furthermore, the cook should have been beaten soundly with one of his own red cabbages for producing such a foul mockery. Furthermore-more, it should be noted that hiring a somewhat talented Charlie Brown jazz bassist to entertain the guests in your caf� does not make up for the poor quality of the food you serve there. If you have a good bassist, start a band not a restaurant. Just sayin’.

So, there you have my confession in full. I was a lost, dazed and confused snitty little wuss in The Big C.

Doubtless, they are happy to be rid of me and my vegan husband, and I am equally happy to be back in Kentucky and playfully mocking them in my blog.

See how life works itself out for the best?

If you live near Cincinnati, it’s likely that you just heard the whole city breathe a unified sigh of relief. Apparently there are over 331,825 Cincinnatians, and my husband and I managed to annoy each and every one of them during our brief stay.

So, if you were privy to this audible sigh but wondered about the cause of it, well, mystery solved…

Obviously, certain apologies are in order:

Dear Ohio,

You can come out of the basement now. We’re back in Kentucky and everything is going to be ok. I am truly sorry for any undue stress I caused you.

Your Friend,
Debbie

Dear Kentucky,

I regret to inform you that the worst has happened — both my husband and I made it back safely from our trip. Go back to the basement.

Apologies in Advance,
Debbie

Imagine if you will that you have a crazy person in your charge. You are completely responsible for her care and her overall well being. In the past, she has attempted to pick up a bloody rag that was lying in a gutter, she has put a bead into her nose, and she has made a game of sliding down two flights of stairs on her back. If left to her own devices she would eat nothing but spaghetti, ice cream and the occasional Chicken McNugget. Keeping her safe and healthy is no easy task.

You must be always be careful of how you phrase instructions to her. Never leave her a loophole, and for God’s sake, never underestimate her! She is crazy, but she is also a lawyer. Assume nothing, and take no detail for granted.

If you tell her to put on a coat, don’t presume she’ll button it. If you think she should button the coat and wear gloves or maybe a hat, tell her. Of course, she’ll lose one of the gloves and the hat on the very first day she wears them, but that is to be expected. Did you tell her NOT to lose them? See? You were asking for it…

This is how it feels to be a mom.

On one hand I feel very lucky to have a smart, healthy daughter. On the other, I see that I’ve gone from being a happy-go-lucky free spirit to something more akin to Nurse Ratchett in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I don’t hand out pills, though. Instead, I try to force my daughter to swallow old wives tales and urban myths. If I don’t have a sound reason as to why she shouldn’t take baths in water so hot that her skin turns bright crimson red, then I will tell her that this behavior causes varicose veins. She likes to take hot baths, and the fact that it upsets me to see her boil herself like a lobster is not reason enough to insist she change a behavior which, in all honesty, has yet to do her any harm.

My mother used many of the same methods in attempting to keep me in check during my pre-teen years. Her efforts at reigning me in were all but wasted on my rebellious little ass. If she didn’t outright forbid a certain behavior, I would push the boundaries to the outer limits.

For example, at around age eleven I took to positioning myself upside-down to read. I would hang my head off the couch and hold an upside-down book to my upside-down face. The first time I did this, it was simply for noveltie’s sake. But, wouldn’t you know, when I discovered this behavior of mine made my mom helplessly batty with irrational protests against it, it quickly became my preferred way to peruse Teen Beat.

My mother did what she had to do. She could easily have just said, “Don’t do that. It makes me nuts.” But, she wanted me to care about her feelings, and stop out of good conscience. So, instead, she suggested negative outcomes for me that my upside-down reading might cause. Something about my brain caving in, perhaps? Oh, and blindness. Definitely blindness. That was her favorite.

Luckily, today I’m nowhere near the vegetable that my mother predicted I would become if I didn’t heed all of her warnings. To whit, I am not blind from reading Mad Magazines with minimal lighting, I am not deaf from listening to my Bay City Rollers albums at a high volume, my eyes never stayed irretrievably crossed when I made an ugly face at her, and I am neither paralyzed nor dead from falling off a bed I jumped on one too many times.

I guess I could say that since I turned out ok, maybe I shouldn’t get bothered over the little things my kid does that annoy me. I could say that, but who would I be kidding? It is always going to drive me up the wall when I see her get out of the tub with her legs all red. So, has anyone got a believabl
e story to tell her? Telling her the truth (i.e. that it will dry out her skin) does not work. Maybe I should tell her she’ll go blind…

Writing is all about capturing your audiences interest in the first sentence or two. I can’t even keep my own attention today.

It seems I’m at a party with Myself and I keep telling Myself, “That’s an interesting story idea.”

I’m lying, of course, and I know it. I’m boring Myself to death. In fact, I keep catching Myself stealing glances over my own shoulder and toward the exit door or in the general direction of the food table. Doubtless Myself is hoping there’s still booze to be had there. But, sadly, we are out of Cuervo Gold, which makes Me much more entertaining, if only to Myself.