"My father wove a tapestry of obscenity that as far as we know , is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."
I think of my father every year when I watch A Christmas Story. I also remember years ago watching City Slickers and Jack Palance saying "That's a mighty fine yahoo boy," just as my dad slammed the back door and was spouting off about his latest injustice. I simply smiled and said "That's a mighty fine yahoo boy." My mom laughed. Obviously my dad had no idea what the reference was. But he laughed anyway. One thing I know for sure is that Big D loved him some profanity. He was the type of linguist that would make George Carlin blush. He used the seven words you can't say on television in his Christmas card. And that's if he liked you.
He also loved animals. There were many rescues in our past; a struck deer that died in his arms, injured birds (one was even a homing pigeon), a Great Pyrenees, a suspected rabid dog that bit both him and our dog Skipper, and of course the battered dog I stole in front of him that caused subpoenas to arrive in both our names. But thanks to him polar bears at the Cleveland Zoo got plenty of marshmallows, my dog Dexter got pockets full of jelly beans, and the birds in the back yard had seed to keep them warm in flight. He often said he liked animals better than people. But as you can muster from the above paragraph that bar is really low.
He really disliked old people. He refused to join my mother at any events at the senior center simply saying "I don't want to be around those old people." He often suggested that he trade my mother in on two of whatever age she happened to be at the time. If she was sixty he would say two thirty-year-olds and so on. He hated chit chat. He would tell his barber "Jesus Christ George, if that story was any longer I would be bald."
He did love one thing more than, well, all the tea in China - McDonald's coffee. You may not know this. But McD's offers seniors coffee for a quarter. It's like offering Walmart shoppers spandex for two bits. Look out. He was hooked. My mother treating him to Mocha Java from Gevalia was his only methadone. It was the one time he didn't lie about his age. He was there so much that during one of his hospital stays flowers arrived from the clerks at his local haunt.
He had a delivery system of his sense of humor that let him get away with calling the man who owned the bodega where he got his lottery tickets simply Arab (pronounced A-rab), telling black jokes in front of my black girlfriend, and actually driving by a speed trap and tipping his beer to the cop he knew. I'm trying to master his technique. When my mother called years ago to tell me that I am in charge of their living wills, I said to tell dad that I am going to start practicing on the microwave right away. He responded with a favorite of his "Moosh, I love ya. But I don't like ya."
He loved to say I was his favorite daughter. He was my favorite dad.
RIP David J. Tomko
Love,
Moosh
For the next week I am pet sitting. Ya know. The usual: 4 chocolate labs, one cat, about a thousand various fish (I pray I don't miss a tank), and twelve roosters and hens. What?
I am from Cleveland. The only thing I know about chickens definitively is that I like sweet & sour sauce with my McNuggets. Once more the hens are brooding. I googled that and it isn't good. Apparently they don't like it when you try to take their unborn children. They like to take turns sitting on them trying to get them to hatch. What I see as an omelet they see as the next generation. Roosters I am finding out like to make noise for no reason and get all Fifty Shades in the hen house. So every morning I am doomed to break up cock fights and battle the feathered auxiliary of Operation Rescue. I might screw it and just make oatmeal.
The cat is cool. Passive-agressive, but cool. Feed me. Pet me. I bite you. Repeat. Whatever human was the first to think it was a good idea to let a cat into their cave had to have no feeling in his or her hands. Or the crazy prehistoric mice they had bit harder. But the whole set up is weird.
But now to everyone's favorite. The Labradors. Who can resist? You know how they are so sweet and attentive? You know how they just slowly follow you around and want to get petted? You know how they are just big, furry, door mats? Well, one of the four is like that. The other three are in varying stages of puppyhood. They resemble more the Bumpus Hounds from A Christmas Story than the bucholic, chubby, little blockheads we all know and love.
So remember folks. I do it all. Plus my material is killing here after I in force the two bone minimum.Remember Michelle Tomko, voted best petsitter by an independent - Lab .
Let’s knock it off with the Fifty Shades of Grey shall we? Let me start off by saying I have not read any of the trilogy or seen the movie. I did however see a live parody of it last night and watch Peter K. Rosenthal’s review of the movie for The Onion. And based on the number of academy members who vote for the Oscars without actually seeing the films, by pop culture standards I’m qualified. It tried to read a synopsis. I really did. I do my due diligence for this blog. But I just couldn’t get through it. Why does it take this chick so long to realize she has the short end of it? Free car or not? And come to find out there are three of these turds. It’s gotta be global warming.
By all accounts of note these books are written badly. It’s just a bad book. It’s not even a book really. It’s pages from fanfiction.net that have a bunch of sex in it. Sex. That’s why it is popular. The movie is popular too. Because it has sex in it – dirty, taboo sex. But it’s out of a book. So that makes it okay for cougars to go see it. It’s not like it is porn. It’s a novel brought to life. It's crappy. Stop spending money on it.
I for one never intend on going to my local BAM! for porn. No way. Admittedly I like a little plot with my porn. But I am still going to pornhub.com and watching it for free in the privacy of my own home and not at my book club’s viewing party. Because this is ‘Merica. And that’s how we do.
OMG! I just returned from seeing a play at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. To quote Annalise’s mother in an episode of How to Get Away with Murder, “Clean up this mess. It’s a pigsty. Where’s the home training?”
When did we begin to treat rich history-laden, 20th century, monumental theatres like Regal Cinemas? Can somebody in Red Bank please keep the hairspray out of their eyes long enough to realize that those are actual actors up there? FYI: THEY CAN SEE AND HERE YOU! They notice when you come to your sixth row seats, double-fisting cocktails, ten minutes after the curtain goes up. They notice when you have a full-on conversation without using your inside voice. And yes. They notice when you and the rest of your balding, leopard-print clad, double-date pick up and leave just as the curtain call begins and step on the toes of the shocked audience members between you and the door while showing the cast your back. Can you tell who I was sitting next to?
But the rest of the audience was no better. Upon leaving (After giving the cast their proper kudos I might add) I noticed squashed tubs of popcorn and cracked plastic cups with ice drooling out of them all over the floor. Did Wednesday used to be league night here or something? I’ve seen rednecks behave better at their sister/cousin’s wedding.
Shame on the Count Basie too. I realize I wasn’t there to see The Cherry Orchard. What play was it you wonder? Um... Okay. It was Spank! (Hey. The tickets were a gift!) But there is still no excuse! Why are you selling popcorn and cosmos in plastic cups at the theatre dah-ling? And you dare to use the British spelling of theatre on your building. I know times are tough. But come on. Respect for the craft son.
I call shenanigans! I cal PC mother-lovin' SHENANIGANS!
Okay I know there are many variances on the Kinsey Scale for sexuality. Live at let live. But I can't keep up with them anymore. Did you know that LGBT has been lengthened to LGBTQITSLFA? Are you serious? I say MF.
Why do we need all that? Why do homosapians have to label and categorize everybody? We strive to be individuals. We strive to be free. But whenever we can we have to find a label for ourselves. We don't need it. I almost want to go back to fifties when people asked "What are ya, queer?" Neat and easy like Johnny Unitas' hair.
There is even a fancy word for straight: CISGENDER. Know what it means? It describes related types of gender identity where individuals' experiences of their own gender match the sex they were assigned at birth. Cis means "on the side of". You know it is getting out of control when the straight people are getting in on the act. Straight smart people. Actually they have been using it since the 90's. Maybe they started it.
For me, I say stop the alphabet soup at L - for leave me alone.
