one sentence movie review

i just put a shit load of movies in my netflix queue….  some from the independent spirit awards and some from the oscars.  several overlap which i think is great because i tend to enjoy movies that don’t get much hype.  and [not that anyone cares what i think] i’m going to update my movie review page ~ hopefully more often that i have in the past.  they are on the tab up top ‘movie review’.

dear sally and dino ~

this is an open letter to one of my oldest friends and one of my best friends…. you both left me ~ and if you don’t think we were all connected, it seems [i found out today] that you, dino, died on sally’s birthday…

i miss you both ~ for a bunch of different reasons, but none more important that the fact that i loved you both.

sal, when i went to san diego to see the aggies play san diego state [which turned out to be an ass kicking on their part]  it was the first time i had been to the stadium without you… that wasn’t the most difficult part.  my sweet brother took us to dinner at sally’s and we sat in the [general area] of our favorite table.  the menu [as you know] isn’t quite the same as when we used to go there, but the place is still the same and i missed you being there ~ having a bloody mary and eating  blackened shrimp caesar salad…[without the stinking anchovies]  i had some kind of scallop thing and we toasted you.  then after dinner my sweet brother drove us over to the parking lot by the midway [i couldn’t figure out what was going on] he had a cooler in the [supervisor] truck and he took out some o’doules and opened them ~ when i turned around i noticed that we were right by the hill where we used to watch the parade for the holiday bowl… it was dark and i walked over there with my o’doules and stood on ‘our spot’ and boobed like a baby, i missed you so much!  then a remarkable think happened ~ they started shooting fireworks off of the deck of the midway ~ just like they were doing that for you or like you told them to or whatever, but it was wonderful ~ you know one thing that i really regret, is that we never went to balboa park and laid on the grass with a big pile of one dollar bills and looked up at the sky and bet on what kind of plane would fly over next [like we always said we would]… i promise you that someday i am going to do that and you’d better bet me from heaven, which won’t really be fair because you will be able to see the planes before i do!

dino, i found out today that you died on sally’s birthday, just 3 days short of your own… and you managed to get out earlier than your parole date!  and this time they can’t tack on another 8 years!   i sincerely hope there was a nice stray dog waiting for you on the rainbow bridge and you now have all the things you wanted that you were never able to get in this life…  i am going to write your son a letter tomorrow and see if i can find out where you are buried… i would at least like to know that.  i am [just] a little pissed because apparently you never did let anyone [but me] know what your wishes were.  well, like i always said when i missed one of your phone calls ~ it’s not like i can just call you back…  things are just things and i’m going to quit fretting about it, because it is way out of my control! 

well, my friends, i toast you both, for the things we had and the things we planned that never came to pass.  i cherish all the memories and the love we shared… you were so different and so much a part of my life, i miss you and i know you are both now at peace…  remember when i dream about you, wave and i will wave back!

random thoughts from sir paul’s ‘up and coming’ tour stop in slc….

it was hot, we paid $20 for parking in rio tinto stadium’s tiny parking lot [big mistake, more on that later], got out of the truck and paul mccartney was doing his sound check [right then]  ~bonus! stood in the hot sun and listened…. it was hot, but that was cool.

walked to nearby jordon commons to have dinner, decided on the mayan [big mistake, more on that now]… eating at the mayan is like eating in a cave, it’s dark, it’s dreary, the atmosphere sux, there is a live ‘show’ of half to three quarters naked young men and women diving off the plastic rock cliffs into a plastic rock pond. [not complaining here you should have seen the six pack on this kid] [i’m sure he was at least 18 so don’t call the authorities].  so while it is too dark to see what you are eating you also have to worry about getting splashed by water from the plastic rock pond.  on a positive note, the food was very good, i would eat it again, i just wouldn’t  eat it again in the mayan… AND larry h. miller must have spent a lot of money on coolers because the beer was coooold, really cold, like frosty cold, thanks larry.  it was hot and the beer was cooold.

it’s utah and of course the concert started late, tickets said 7:30 and the concert started at about 8:05 ~ i don’t know if they lied on the tickets to make sure everyone got there on time or what, but since we had nosebleed seats [but pretty good ones] we were in the sun for most of the time prior to the concert starting.  we bought some bottled water from a woman outside “jim’s diner” a little dive a little north of 9400 on state street… [i would like to go check this place out sometime… looked very interesting].  that water saved our lives since they had water in the venue, but the lines were very long and the only thing they were selling inside the stadium was budweiser for $9 a glass [it was a very large glass, didn’t i  buy any cuz nothing says refreshment like a piss warm, flat budweiser]… water in front of  jim’s $1, that was cool.

paul mccartney was absolutely amazing… he played for 3 hours and 15 minutes, never left the stage [actually i don’t think he ever even had a drink of water]…. he played his stuff, the beatles stuff, a little jimi hendrix, wings stuff, new stuff, told stories, talked to the crowd, asked ‘do you wonder why we are using so many guitars?’  “….we’re just showing off.”   he looks like he is still enjoying himself,  if the crowd was really into a song [singing along] he would just keep playing and we would just keep on singing….  he did three encores!  he slowed everything down [twice] and then came back and played ‘helter skelter’.   he told why he wrote ‘blackbird’ [civil rights in arkansas in the ’60s]. he talked about writing ‘my love does it good’ for linda, he talked about writing a song for john about a conversation they would never have and that we should always take the time to tell someone ‘i love you’…

my favorite song of the night was ‘let it be’.  ‘give peace a chance’ maybe a close second.  most fun ~ ‘ O bla de O bla dah’…  he was amazing, amazing!! best concert of my young life and i’m not that young and  i’ve been to a lot of concerts!  best $46 investment i’ve ever made.  that was cool!

when we left the concert there were still folks selling $1 bottles of water in front of jim’s [don’t tell them,  but at that point i would have paid them 5!]

driving to town….

here are a few random thoughts, brought on my random events while driving to town this morning ~ approximately 1.5 miles.

1. where the fuck did these people learn to drive???

2. best yard sale sign of the summer “crap-o-rama 3rd east 3rd south”

3. dude, if your stopped at a stop light on your motorcycle and your garments are hanging out beneath your shorts, the shorts probably aren’t church approved….

4. hey dumb ass [woman on cell phone with poodle on one of those retractable leashes] might want to reel your dog in since it is out in the middle of the street and you are still behind a van and can’t see if there are any cars coming…

5. that was it… i feel better now.

groovin’ on a sunday afternoon….

do you ever receive a christmas / birthday present and put it away and never think you are going to use is so you just kind of forget about it /them?

i do do that and did do that with three things in particular, an “as seen on tv” chopper, a smoothie maker and some steak knives.  in the last couple of weeks i drug each one of these items out and used them ~ chopper to make some killer salsa, smoothie maker to make a wonderful blackberry, kiwi and tangerine smoothie this morning and an equally wonderful pama, vodka and grapefruit cocktail just a little while ago, used a new steak knives for dinner [the second outside bbq of the season and this weekend].

i have some good steak knives and some really old ones that my dad appropriated from the NCO club at dugway…  the good ones are nice, but i use them for just about everything.   the new ones are sharp the old ones not so much, but i forgot i had new ones until today, they are sharp and colorful and new! 

my brother-in-law makes this killer salsa, i asked him for some and instead of making some for me he gave me the chopper like the one he uses ~ this was about three years ago, i joined this co-op called bountiful baskets where you can get fresh fruits and vegetables every saturday morning for $15… so a couple of weeks ago i got the regular basket and the mexican add on, which consisted of everything you need to make killer salsa, so i drug out the chopper, got the recipe from my brother-in-law and made some killer salsa [all by myself] with the help of the ‘as seen on tv’ chopper and a couple of shots of tequila!

one of my bestest friends from [well actually from my whole life] gave me a smoothie maker for my birthday last year, it’s been [literally] kicking around my kitchen in the box for 9 months…. i had some fruit left over from the last bountiful baskets pick up and decided to try to make a smoothie this morning ~ it was delish!  i’m not going to use the plastic cups that came with it [i prefer to drink out of glass glasses] but i don’t think i will ever put this thing away again.

i sat down a little while ago to eat dinner and decided to watch something i had dvr’d [once again] i had a difficult time picking because most of the stuff on there was killer slasher crime stuff that you don’t really want to watch while eating dinner [or anything else for that matter]…

i posted a contest on my facebook page ~ it involves winning a choice of one of two $25 gift cards ~ i sometimes write memos at work that involve a free pound of godiva chocolates or some other equally yummy treat in the last paragraph just to see if anyone reads the whole thing.  i haven’t got many bites on my facebook contest, but it’s the weekend so i’m going to leave my contest rules up until wednesday to see if anyone else reads and joins in… the more the marrier!  if not, i have 4 people in the contest now and someone will win!

speaking of facebook ~ i finally watched SNL last night with betty white hosting, it was great!  if you didn’t see it, you should watch it….  i’m just sayin’

i [painfully] came to the conclusion that i can not  [no longer choose to] work in the yard for two whole days on the weekend…  my back yard is a disaster and i’m way behind on the mowing, but my front yard looks great and is once again acceptable.  i’m going out now to pick up dog poops and then i need to mow tomorrow so i can take advantage of the free watering we are going to get on tuesday and wednesday….

check this out just for fun!

organ donor…

i’m in ohio and i just saw the coolest billboard ever… it said:

be an organ donor,  give your heart to Jesus

dove milk chocolate ~

trust me…. all the philosophy you could ever want or need is written on the inside of the wrapper on a dove milk chocolate… !

do you think if momorn men were allowed to write their own obituaries they would say they enjoyed [some mormon activity] or that they enjoyed drinking coffee with their buds at the local cafe and fishing…?

why is one out of every six coronas skunky???

i have decided that my 15 year old dog [who has been diagnosed with ‘chronic kidney failure’] is going to live out the rest of his days on medication and love and not be taken to the vet several times a week for some kind of treatment… he’s fifteen years old and can still tell how many milk bones i have given him and knows there is an extra one left on the table for him every morning when i go to work…. plus he’s still eating and active and playing with the little dog and he still has the brightest eyes of any dog i know… he’s a little shaky at times, but he’s 15 years old…. ! i love him more than any old dog in the united states of america, probably the world, if not the universe….

posting this now under random shit or whatever tag seems to fit….

…is this the emergency…

ok, before i start this i want to make one thing perfectly clear ~ i love animals ~ all animals…. this was just tooo funny not to write about.

my old dog is in moderate renal failure and i have had to take him to the vet each morning this week for some treatments to try to flush out his kidneys and to determine how we will handle this from here.  he’s almost 15 years old and except for a little incontinence he is doing just fine…  i took him in to see if there was something they could give him for that because, honestly, i have never changed a diaper in my life and don’t really want to start now… so while at the vet we discuss doing a ‘senior wellness’ exam.  which is a good idea for anyone when they get to be old [like me for instance].  that is how they found the renal failure.

he has never liked getting in the truck, mostly because about 15 years ago now someone took him, his mother and 4 other puppies up the canyon and dumped them off ~ so ~ whenever i have had to take him anywhere it looks like i am trying to steal my own dog… i have to lift him up and shove him in the truck and then jump in and close the door before he can jump back out.  he doesn’t weigh quite as much as he used to so it is a little easier to lift him up, but no easier to get the door shut before he tries to get back out.  i have had to do this three days in a row now, but they are real good with him at the vet so he hasn’t freaked out too much, at least not after the door is shut and we start to roll…

my [his] appointments have been at 8:00 am just when the vet office opens, the treatments take about 10 minutes and the plan was for me to take him home and be to work by about 9:15 or 9:30.

yesterday morning the place was a little busy, someone was picking up their dogs that had been boarded, someone else had a dog in for a nail clipping.  simon was waiting patiently in the corner.  the door burst open and this 20 something girl comes in with something wrapped in a towel and she was crying, red-faced and quite upset.  the receptionist said ” is this the emergency”… “yes the chick”.  inside the towel was a teen age looking chicken, not your garden variety chicken, but one of those exotic looking birds.  at this point i am thinking i hope she doesn’t drop it and simon nails it right here…. it had already been attacked by something, turns out by another chicken.

after a converstion with the receptionist about money and when they would be able to look at the bird the tech transported the chick to the back of the hospital and shut the door, simon is still waiting patiently in the corner, but by now he has peed on himself and on the floor ~ i say “we have had an accident over here”… now i’m sure simon is not the first dog, nor the last to pee in the vet’s office but i still felt bad for him… we get it cleaned up and they put out the wet floor sign and i towel him off and while everyone is staring at us i look up and say “it sucks to get old!”

that sweet girl has calmed down a little bit and the office isn’t quite so busy. now i’m sure that if it was my chicken i would have been just as upset, i get very attached to animals very quickly. but the conversation that followed, just struck me as humerous and it was all i could do not to bust up right there.  the vet came out to get simon, while she was holding his leash she said, “the chick is standing up and is in stable condition”.

i waited for simon to come out, put him in the truck and brought him home… we had a conversation [well mostly me] about how i’m glad she didn’t drop the chick and he didn’t spring up and bite its face off or something.  i told someone at work this story and we laughed about if the chick didn’t make it would they have said it tasted like chicken?

 i was 45 minutes late for work…

i asked this morning and no one knew if the chick made it or not, it wasn’t still there and so i will ask again in the morning.  i hope it did  because i could tell that girl was attached to it and it was just a baby, i have had 15 years to get attached to simon and i’m praying that he makes it too!  we’ll just do what we can.

~edit~ 5-6-10  i had to stop at the vet to get simon’s perscription filled and i finally remembered to ask about the chicken.  it made it, she said they stitched up its little head and it looked like frankenchicken, but it was fine….

… condemned …

last summer there was a tragedy in which three people lost their lives when a mud slide crushed their house.  

a couple of weeks ago i was reading in the paper where that property and the ones surrounding it were being sought after by the city.  the paper stated that a small apartment building just to the west of where the house had been destroyed had been condemned.  this made me sad.  that small apartment building was my home for 11 years. 

we moved over there after finishing out a contract on our first apartment and a boot from the landlord because we got a puppy.  that apartment was quite nice, fairly large, and fairly new.  the small apartment we moved into was old, small and not so much nice.  i remember sitting in the living room the day we moved in and thinking, this place is kind of a dump…  

that place had a wonderful three-tier yard,  large dog run at the top;  there was a spring running through the yard, a water fall, apple trees, pear trees, an apricot tree and lots of trails to explore on the hill behind, and the canal road to walk the dog.  it was in the middle of the city, but you could go into the back yard and just block out everything that was going on… it was private and shady and quiet.  it turned out to be a great place to live. 

we lived in the basement apartment, we always had good neighbors above us ~ randy and his cat boots, then jean and tammy and their dog dutchess, then mike and mike and their dog munchie, then todd and amanda. their little boy and their white poodle…  we lived downstairs ~ charlie and kim and our dog frodo and later my mom’s dog boots, our cats black cat, princess, monkey, barr, shoes, rocky and candy cat, plus a string of cats and kittens that were born and died and came and went over the years…  two of them were buried under some trees at the top of the back yard.

we went through three sets of landlords during that time, if you bought that apartment ~ we just sort of came with it…

we had lots of parties when we lived in that apartment ~ friends over all the time… birthdays and holidays and superbowls and weekends.  those were the days when the party would shut down at 11:30 for an hour and a half while we all watched saturday night live [when it was still good] and then we would turn the tv off and party some more.    

we drank a lot of kegs of micalob dark in the back yard of that apartment.  we ate a lot of gia’s godfather sandwiches in the kitchen.  there was always something going on.  our friend joel would come over most nights to watch tv.  we smoked a lot of fish outside, we made apple cider and apple sauce and i canned pears and apricots.  i had the most beautiful roses….  we had annual crappy and hushpuppie dinners with fish we caught at willard bay.

i have a zillion memories in that little apartment ~ these are some of the most entertaining ones, in no particular order, because some of my brain cells may have been fried in the 11 years we lived in that apartment…

after my mom died we inherited a small kerosene heater, it was about as big as a 5 gallon bucket and had a real flame with a screen over the front where the flame was.  it was nice for keeping the room you were in warm so the furnace didn’t have to run so much… one night we were sitting in the living room ~ we had this dorky cat, she had the i.q. of a soda cracker, but she was sweet… she LOVED the kerosene heater, she would prance back and forth in front it, just basking in the heat….  this particular night she decided to rub up against the thing, which would have been fine, but her tail went into the screen and lit up like a roman candle… the top half of her tail was seriously on fire.  i tried not to freak her out, because i didn’t want her to run under the bed or something and set the whole place on fire.  i got up and walked over to her and gently pushed her down on the floor and beat the crap out of  her tail…. fire out, she never even had a clue.

when frodo was about 10 years old charlie decided he was too old to go duck hunting any more.  the last time he had gone hunting we had to carry him outside for almost a week, because he was so stiff and sore he couldn’t walk.  so one morning charlie got up, loaded all the duck hunting paraphernalia in the truck and left a very pissed off dog home.  this was at around 4:30 am, because he was going to salt creek and that is about a two hour drive from where we lived.  i slept in… somewhere around 10:30 charlie came back home and i asked him what he was doing back so early… he said he had hit a goose and two ducks and couldn’t find them so he had come home to get the dog and go back out…. he loaded the dog in the truck and drove all the way back out there, came home later with 2 ducks and a goose.  i said [and still do to this day] if i had been frodo, i wouldn’t have gotten in the truck!

one year i decided to have a surprise party for charlie on his birthday… joel had the assignment of keeping him out fishing until 7:00 pm… i invited lots of people, friends, neighbors, sisters, brothers, just about everyone we knew… i had a giant 5 ft godfather sandwich from gia’s, made a cake, 9 or 10 kinds of beer and a giant bottle of wine.  i’m not making this up, but every single person i invited called to tell me they were going to be late! every single one… by 6:30 i was home alone with a giant bottle of wine, a giant sandwich and a birthday cake.  somehow, everyone got there before charlie did, but i was so nervous that nobody was going to get there i was pretty much tanked by the time charlie got home, but we all had a great time.

on the sunday of superbowl 10 we were getting ready to watch the game when my dad’s 15 year old tv (the only one we had ever had) decided to die.  charlie tore it apart got out his soldering iron and tried to fix it ~ somewhere during half time it started working, for about 5 minute and then died again… we did not see any of that game, and superbowl 10 is still the one that they compare all the others to…  a couple of years later we had tony and baker over to watch the superbowl and help us finish a keg that we had for a party the night before ~ this is four people finishing about half a keg of beer…. and i’m sure we gave it a hell of a try!

one saturday afternoon in the summer of ’85 or so, i wasn’t home and charlie was up on the canal road walking the dog, the hillside had given way and had filled the canal behind our house blocking the flow and causing the water to run down the hill and into the street below…   this caused a flood that went through several houses in the area and missed going down the back stairs of our apartment by about 5 inches.   the water and mud literally went around our apartment and out into the street.  the water continued to run until the canal was shut off at first dam…. for several days afterward the hillside continued to slough away and at one point the highway above was closed because it was feared the whole hillside would come down and bring the road with it….  water ran through the house just to the east of us for over a week.

last summer those people lost their lives in a mud slide that happened in an area that had a history of instability for over 25 years.  that also makes me sad.

more random shit from my brain….

why is it that your hair always looks the best (1) right before you go to bed or (2) the day you are going to get it cut?

yesterday i was driving home and stopped at a stop light behind a white mini van (aka big mormon wagon), the van contained a dad and several children…  there was a bumper sticker on the van.  white with red letters it said “I ♥ Beaver” ** ~ well that’s obvious dude!

not that this is any of my business  (please note the name of this blog) but, i like sandra bullock, i like jesse james, i’m pretty sure that they like each other ~ i seriously hope they work things out get back together…

one important thing president obama has accomplished ~ my white trash republican friends and family have finally stopped emailing me crap about bill clinton….

i had to go buy more peeps yesterday, i ate all the ones i bought about a month ago… if i give up sweets for lent i don’t have this problem they last until easter, but this year i gave up beer. …on a related note, it is wrong to have beer for breakfast on easter??

my friend annika lent me the “sookie  stackhouse” novels… yea, yea, i know; more vampire porn ~ i read the first three and went to start the forth and it wasn’t there… it’s titled  dead to the world  and i went to borders yesterday and used my 30% off coupon to purchase it (don’t want to read vampire porn out of order, might confuse myself)… so, annika, FYI,  if you missed this one, it will be with the others when you get them back.

how many commas can YOU correctly use in one sentence??

craig ferguson is hysterical.

** full disclosure ~ beaver mountain is the local ski resort, so it’s entirely possible that white van dude is an avid skier.  but i totally convinced that whoever came up with those bumper stickers knew exactly what he was doing when he had them printed. ♥