My Funny Valentine's

Hello, friends. I hope y'all had a nice weekend with your snuggle bunny, sugar plum, shnookums, buffy, picklebutt, dumpster mouth (reserved for those early AM moments), gorillabuns or in my case, Scooby.

How was my weekend you ask? It went fantastically well, thank you for inquiring. So nice that I wish I had documented more in the way of pictures but as it stands, the ones I did take this weekend have me bearing a striking resemblance to Alice from the Brady Bunch. It's true. Look closely.

It's a cruel, cruel world.

Friday night we went to dinner at the restaurant where we had our first date. It was very romantical. We talked about everything under the sun; gay marriage, private school vouchers, the civil war, worms.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the local coffee shop playing a heated game of Trivial Pursuit. We only had a total of five "pie" pieces between the two of us dingleberries over 2.5 hours of playing. Quit thinking to yourself that his pie contained four of the five pieces. That ain't nice.

That night, we had tickets to attend "Jazz Night", a benefit thrown for our local live theater. I suspect we were the only ones there under age 50 and we didn't dance, but we had a great time watching those who did. One man in particular stole our attention. We pegged him to be around 57 with maybe a kid or two in college, and boy was he feeling the groove; passionate finger snapping, swaying to the beat, eyes tightly closed and front teeth plastered firmly to his bottom lip. We just sat back in our chairs and took it all in. It was like people watching at the air port but much heavier on the sequins and Lycra.

Here was Scoob at 8...

At 9:30...

And here he is right before I called us a cab.

Happy Valentine's Day to all my Valentines!

18

1. My brother and I held a funeral service for a yard squirrel that was fried on our electrical wires, entrails and all. For the eulogy, Clint played the theme song from Forrest Gump on his mini battery-operated keyboard. We were 14 and 10, respectively.

2. I could eat bushels of Basil and tomato sauce by the buckets.

3. Veins are disgusting. If you have them, please do keep them to yourself.

4. I cannot help but personify my automobiles. When I am working them hard on the interstate, I feel like maybe I should stop and offer them a Gatorade and a pep-talk.

5. I love to bake and cook however, if it doesn’t turn out as aesthetically pleasing as the picture suggests it should, I get mad and feed it to my dad.

6. I hope to one day see all people the way Jesus sees them. No small feat.

7. Growing out of the middle of my forehead is an unwelcome maverick hair. It grows really fast and requires constant upkeep. Sometimes, on special occasions, I curl it.

8. Hank Paulson, former secretary treasury, has a wicked smooth voice. Google him and swoon.

9. My high school friend and I used to eat whole containers of fat-free Pringles made with the fat substitute Olestra. Only after our hair started to fall out and our bellies made strange guttural noises did we heed the surgeon generals warning.

10. Regarding number 9, I am in desperate need of a new colon (No thanks, Nate Freeman).

11. Baby wrists (fat bands) are just the best.

12. I often wonder how does Mary Matalin stand it?

13. Abraham Lincoln would be one cool dinner date.

14. I will probably never answer my cell phone in your presence. You and what you have to say are important to me.

15. My short term memory is the pits.

16. I got a quart of paint lodged in the spokes of my Schwinn bike riding home from a Kmart parking lot, circa 1990. I was tossed off my bike like a chump and landed in a puddle of semi-gloss and low self-worth. With blood and paint spewing alike, I carried my bike boldly over my head all the way home. Mom hosed me down outside like the family dog and sent me back for more paint, this time on foot.

17. The whole "on foot" has never really worked for me either. Running on a sidewalk during college, I tripped over a hotly contested (but in my mind) huge boulder that was in my pathway. The fall in and of itself was not spectacular, however, I used the side of my head to break my descent. Imagine for a moment that you're me and you are waiting on a table of doctors that same night when one of them looks at you and says, "Amanda, your pupils are as big as dinner plates! Did you have a fall recently?" Well Doctor, yes I have! Was it the scab that just opened up and is now draining down my face that gave it away or was it my eyes that speak of my impending death? One trip to the ER and a single CT Scan later, I'm happy to report that I am still doing retarded things everyday.

Here is my bloody show and saucer plate pupils, compliments of Microsoft Paint.

18. I have reached a very startling conclusion based on numbers 15-18.

One of Them

Friends, it is time for me to take a long, hard look in the mirror and admit to myself and to you that I am one of them. A lover of cat. However, my affections does not apply to other* feline beside my own. If I see one slinking around outside I think, "Go away, dummie." Because feral cats don't want you to pet them. Thus, they are useless.

We figure Bentley is roughly 18+ years old and came to us as a stray in 1993. He's out-lived two other cats, two birds and four dogs. Now he's all fur and bones, deaf, donning a wonky eye, has remarkable halitosis, some broken front teeth, a dumb tail, anger and defiance issues, and has been drawing on unemployment benefits for years now, but dadgumit, I love him to pieces.

My mom used to get a kick out of my "in memoriam" plans for Bentley. I will first dry out his osteoporotic bones in order to make a wind-chime that will hang and clink in the kitchen window. Then I will fashion his silky paws into a key-chain ornament (and not his whole arm, mind you, just his paw. Anyone who would pull out of their purse a long and skinny cat arm with a ring of keys, quite frankly, needs help).

Anyone out there scared yet? Well, simmer down now, those are just thoughts. I have no immediate plans to market those ideas to the public or to carry them out in private. Plus, mom thought it was hilarious and if there is one thing you can be sure of, it's a mothers sound judgement regarding their children's sanity and physical attractiveness.

By the way, Bentley can be summoned by any one of these names:

Chimi-changa

Eugene (his middle name)

Eu-wee

Jeanie (a derivative of Eugene)

Jeane-puff
Jeane-bag

Chocolate sticks

Bentley had just made 7 fruit pies and was taking a break.

And here he is with the devil in him.

Here he is as Queen Elizabeth.

Bentley likes to pretend he could make it "out there" again but he doesn't like grass, noise, other people, other animals, searching for his next meal, searching for water, et cetera.

Here we are dancing. As a side note, I am completely normal and am in need of your friendship more now than ever. Obviously.

... And here is Bentley getting wind of the post-mortem plans I have for him.

*This is excludes Simba, Little Cat, Tux, Zachary, and Otis.

Oooo, sparkly things!

Since typing the title for this post, I have officially checked my email-twice, Facebook, the MSN homepage, checked my nail growth and stared off into the khaki walls of my room thinking about absolutely nothing until my attention was brought back to what I originally set off to do which was to write to you about attention deficits. Make that twice for Facebook.

I've never lived in anyone else's brain for an extended period of time so maybe I'm plum normal. Probably not, but I digress. In hoping to pass the buck around a little, I would like to propose to you that, in part, my wandering hapless brain could be a consequence of my generations' speed-crazed bamboozlement and cerebral sabotage begun at an early age.

In my short lifetime, we have seen the absolute necessity of the remote control, fast food drive-thrus that substitute for sit down meals, jet liners (because who wants to sit in a car for x number of hours), EZpasses, microwave dinners, FedEx Overnite, Minute Made rice, cell phones and because there is nothing more time consuming than calling to ask how someone's day was, texting. We are enamored by things that sparkle, accelerate and shine, blurring our ability to sustain focus on things that frankly don't entertain or dazzle us, like taxes, birds and pro-football. Our newly formulated human consciousness says we are in constant need of stimulation to be productive and amused. And we are.

In a book I read (and strangely enough, finished), author Richard DeGrandpre points to that very fact. He claims that today's youth have grown up in a sensory addicted world and have acclimated to it well enough. So well that when presented with situations that take precision and due diligence, we would rather be skewered on a bowling pin and set out to die in the scorching African sun. Deliberate living, as he called it, has lost relevancy because our brains are conditioned to seek out things that are in keeping with our hyper-paced experience at the expense of a balanced, purposeful life.

Even now in writing to you, I have my TV on mute. It's not off mind you, but only muted. I am neither facing the television nor do I have any other senses telling me it's on other than just my own memory telling me so. Admittedly, the activity flickering in the background reassures me that I am once again, traveling at my accepted rate of normalcy. It's oddly comforting, like an electrified blankie, only I would not suck my thumb in tandem for fear of a crispy death.

This topic has many components to it, including the addition of medication to curb the behaviors associated with this kind of fragmented living (which I have personal experience with and will write on one day). But for now, I hope I have sparked some internal dial…

Oooo, a fly!

*scratches self*

*pats distended belly*

*swivels around in chair and screams "Weeeee!"*

Where were we? Oh yes, leave me some comments.

Dog's N Bones

There are precious few things in this world that I love more than canines. In going through pictures today, I came across a few that melted my little heart. Dogs are the best.

Exhibit number one, Ramsey, aka "Ramsicles". We got Ramsey from the newspaper apparently. When I inquired about his origin, dad told me, "Well, he was free." Well of course he was. How could you put a price on those drooly jowls? Ramsey is best known for doing the "boot-scoot" across my freshly steamed carpet and putting me into an OCD induced cardiac arrest. Anyway, we gave him away when he started biting everybody.

This dog is not stoned but is a dear companion of a family friend. You should ask my brother how he feels about her sometime.

Who doesn't love a chocolate lab puppy? This little guy was a gift given to my friend for graduating medical school. It made total sense that she'd be working 90 hour work weeks for the next few years, however the neighbor boy made some serious dog-walking cash last summer.

Meet Honey. She is my sister's pooch and has been through some tough times as of late. Please note my sisters bang-up swaddling job on her tail. She injured it by wagging too hard and smacking it against the cupboard. Probably out of sheer love and joy at something The Master was doing. I'm pretty sure she should have been taken to the vet but it's a rough economy you know.

And here I am pulling on Honey's healthy limb because I'm really good with dogs. I'm also a lady and don't you forget it!

"Sugar" was a dog that I was going to adopt and then promptly rename. I got as far as a preliminary conversation with the foster mom when she asked me, "Now, what is the name and phone number of the vet you're registering with for her shots and de-worming?" I answered honestly as I could. I explained to her the Brdlik way of dealing with dogs. In the morning, you let them out the backdoor and hope for the best! She hung up. I cried.

Now, this dog. This dog is my very good friend. I watch him when his parents go out of town on vacation and sometimes I just watch him when we're sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and drinking pop together. He looks to be a mix between a lion and Don King. He has the sweetest disposition.

One night while dog-sitting, I saw that he left the room for awhile. I thought that was strange so I turned my head and found him leaning up against the back of the couch, just staring at me. By the way, that kind of behavior is only cute with dogs. Grown men try this and get restraining orders.

Vader and Co.

Honestly, when was the last time you saw a grown man dash down the hallway in his Darth Vader costume and it not be Halloween? If you answered just last week, you might work in mental health. It just so happened that The Dark Lord of the Sith had an appointment the same day that my computer was being fixed by our IT guy. As we listened in to the purposeful and labored breathing of said Darth Vader reverberating down the hall, the IT guy turns to me with one eyebrow cocked. I looked back, smiled and nodded. Understanding abounded.

My purpose is not to belittle those with mental disorders as they are a real and sobering part of people's lives. However, that does not mean that I cannot occasionally tickle your ear with some HIPPA approved anecdotes. In fact, my co-workers and I are comprising a small booklet of memorable occurrences throughout our years in mental health. I haven't settled on a title yet but I'm leaning towards "The CIA, Brain Chips, and You."

Also to note, it's never in good taste to use words or phrases like, "You're so crazy!" or "That's just plain nuts!" in any psychiatrists office, even if completely warranted by your co-workers. Apparently, those aren't proper terms to use, or so I've been told. Or maybe scolded by upper management.

Recently, the good doctor had finished with a new patient and sent him out our front door, out to discover a new life with renewed hope. As he was closing the door behind him, I shouted out "Excuse me, sir!" Thinking he had not heard me, I ran towards the door, swung it open and summoned him back into the office explaining with a tinge of innocent good-cheer, "You weren't hearing things! I was really calling your name!" Slowly and painfully he looks up at me only to utter, "That's why I'm here... hearing things... ain't real." That's precisely when I excused myself, went back into my office and sucked my thumb in silence for over an hour.

Born to friends. Made enemies.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I disliked that little boy. And how I loved him too. -Anna Quindlan

Reader, I don't suspect you were aware of it at the time, but I as an 11 year old girl in my Rollerblades and new AM/FM radio Walkman, was quite the cool cat. Unable to do an honest physical inventory of myself, I was generally unaware of the canyon sized gap between my protruding front teeth, nor did I realize that my most striking feature was not my bangs like I hoped, but my cloudy brown bi-focals. I decided to give you that background information just so you realize that I was, in a few words, attractive and trendy.

Please follow along with me...

Coasting along the busy sidewalk at break-neck speeds and probably listening to Genesis, I was feeling quite smug with my rollerblading skills. It was rush hour, so my audience was vast and my tricks were bold. Perhaps it was providence that I glanced behind me and discovered that my 7 year old brother was peddling like fire in his plastic go-kart at full speed directly at me. His eyes were dead. His legs, twiggy and bandaged.

The next time I tuned in, I was sprawled out, face down in a mixture of grass and gravel, Walkman strewn from my bloody fist. My right arm may have been laying 10 feet out in the street, but that wasn't the point. I would find that arm later. I had to catch him and I had to destroy him for ruining my reputation in front of my... audience.

Now on a war path like no other, I found him furiously peddling toward home, sweat beading up on his little brow. My dark soul smiled as I raced up to him and brought him to a screeching, smoking halt. It was the moment of decision. Would I let him live? Could I sell him for profit? Maybe a proper public pummelling would suffice? As I began to breath heavily and with the weight of such a decision looming, I decided that the best move would be pick up the go-kart, with brother sitting in it, and then drop it, bending the front axle and rendering it useless for the rest of its pathetic life. Remember, I was all of 85 lbs of steel and raw emotion then. Just imagine watching the scene unfold as you're driving home from work.

Realizing that these stories only appeal to a very slim majority of familial readers, I do apologize. However, at some primitive level, can't we all understand this sibling-induced rage? If you have any good stories, or not so good stories (see above), do tell.

P.S. I apologize for the picture resolution. I'm working on my scanning prowess.