Dirty, Dirty Halloween

So Michael and I were looking for a costume for him at the halloween store. We found that the men's section was about 1/3 in size to the ladies' section. I started looking at the girlie costumes to see what I could expect in Vegas this year. There did seem to be an overwhelming amount of sexy nurses, sexy cops, sexy witches, sexy cowgirl, sexy ghost, sexy [insert anything you want]. Even Playboy has put out some costumes this year. AND all the shoes were stripper shoes. So what went through my mind?

"Man, how many non-hotties are going to try to squeeze themselves into these costumes!"

That's not so much a worry in Vegas, because last year about 90% of the scantily-clad ladies I saw had stripper bodies. But at your average neighborhood party? This could get ugly.

Interestingly, the sociologists are concerned too (not about people looking ugly). They are concerned that women are vamping it up for the wrong reasons and that the sexy look is trickling down to little girl costumes. I think it is the safe night to hooch it up if you're normally not a hoochy, but I am concerned that we're going to get to the point of look sexy or don't dress up in costume. The costume store owners are saying they are just responding to their consumers.

As a disclaimer, I have tried to be a little sexy on Halloween and I have worn something that was a bit too tight. So I can't say that I don't understand the attraction of going a little hoochy on Halloween, but let's not get carried away. In the costume store, it felt like that if I didn't want to be sexy, then I would be stuck in the "Plug and Socket" costume with Michael. I'm just saying that I don't want to have to be a sexy paramedic or sexy referee or sexy Holly Hobby or sexy Tin Man (yeah, like Wizard of Oz) or sexy pirate or sexy jailbird or sexy confederate (well it's Daisy Duke, copyright issues, but still).

Life as a Vegetable?

A couple weeks ago, I caught the movie Lorenzo's Oil on tv. If you've never heard of it, the movie is about a boy, Lorenzo, who becomes stricken with a rare disease (ALD) that eats his brain and paralyzes his whole body. His parents along with scientists develop an oil that helps retard the progress of the disease. Before the oil is completed, Lorenzo can basically breathe by himself, often choking on his own saliva, and that's about it. Once his parents initiate the oil treatment he can breathe without choking. So the movie ends with Lorenzo being 12 years old and he can blink and move one finger in responses to "yes or no" questions.

Bad news: most boys with this disease only live about 2 years at most from onset.

Good news: with the development of Lorenzo's Oil, if given at the first sight of symptoms, the disease's progress is stopped and the boys can live a long normal life.

OK, so on with my beef about this poor guy.

This movie is based on a real family. So I decided to look online and see what happened to Lorenzo. He is 28 and can wiggle his fingers and blink in response to "yes and no" questions. That's it. They say, "He enjoys music and being read to." How do they know? They ask him this everyday?
So is this child abuse? Keeping a child alive because you as the parent, family or friend believe he wants to hold on to his meager life so that you don't have to let go.

I think it's great that by keeping him alive that they were able to develop this oil that helps out all the other boys with the disease. However, do they ever ask him, "Do you want to still be alive?" I know this debate came up with the whole Terry Schiavo fiasco. Why is it so important for us to live under any conditions possible? Why can't it be OK for a person to want to die? Do we all have to be heroic survivors of whatever life/biology hands us?

Who Hangs Off a Cliff??

So I've been meaning to post this series of pictures that I have of Michael hanging off of cliffs. It originated with Alex doing the pose on Half Dome in Yosemite, as illustrated above. Even Mrs. Little Kenny has gotten in on the act. On their Honeymoon! In Canada! Way to go Mrs. Little K! We've got to keep those Canadians guessing about us down here in the U.S.

Click Here to see them all!!.

Who's Allergic to a Potato??!!

My sister - that's who! So my sister Mary had recently become concerned that she had developed a food allergy. She went to the doctor to get tested and found out that she's mildly allergic to onions, chocolate (much to her dismay), grapes (wine - gone!), pure cane sugar (she's already diabetic so no big deal) and POTATOES! Her first reaction was, "No more french fries!" But then she remembered that she just ate some potato salad (which, no doubt, contained onions) the day before. Then I reminded her about mashed potatoes. The sad thing is that Mary is a relatively picky eater and potatoes are one of the foods that she actually enjoys. I mean who doesn't like potatoes in some form or another? Oh and I forgot to jab her with potato chips!

SUCKS TO BE MARY!

Rather Have a Retard

So when I recently moved to Arizona, I noticed that most of the baggers in the grocery stores were high school age kids. I thought to myself, "Good, no more retards." The grocery stores where I used to live hired mentally-challenged people as their baggers. They always said weird stuff or yelled or bagged my groceries badly and looked funny. I don't care that this is totally politically incorrect because that's how I felt.

So when I saw the high school kids working around here, I thought it was a good thing on two counts. First of all, they weren't slackers like the kids in my last neighborhood that were so bored and unproductive that they would vandalize with ketchup. How sad is that? They don't even use paint! Anyway, I digress. Secondly, I wouldn't have to respond to or ignore the retarded baggers anymore.

Then that all changed yesterday. Some kid was bagging my groceries which were mainly vegetables. He sees my ginger and says, "what the hell is this? some root!" OK, so that's not so weird. But then he sees my eggplant and says, "what is this, an eggplant. It's big. I want to smash it against the wall. Maybe I'll by one so I can throw it at someone." Meanwhile, the checker and another bagger were telling him to stop talking. What a total weirdo!

Spiders are Driving Hazards

So Michael saw this article about a guy crashing his car because a spider scared him. Why would this article interest me? Back in 2001 or 2002 when we lived in Portland, I was driving our new car when a small spider appeared on the door. I HATE, I mean HATE spiders. I rolled down the window, tried to knock it out with my purse (what I would have done if my purse flew out the window, I don't know) and ran into the curb. Fortunately, for me and the car, I was only driving about 30 mph and no one was around. We've got a scratch on the hub cap to remind me of how foolishly I behaved. I still haven't gotten over my fear of spiders (and not even close to getting over it!), but I've learned my lesson that car accidents are worse than spiders. Hopefully, the fool in Maine learned the same.

What a Jerk!

So I'm referring to this fool (I don't even care to know his name) that shot the Amish girls. So far, all we know is that he possibly did it to avenge something that happened 20 years ago and he may have intended to molest him. What kind of coward goes to kill a bunch of little girls and then kills himself? So now his family has to carry the burden of what he's done since he isn't here to be arrested and tried.

I repeat, what a jerk!

Oh, and I have more jerks to add to the heap of jerks in the world: the morning "news" shows. Yes, they rarely are anything but jerks; however, they really stepped up to the plate today. They're all so concerned as to how the Amish are going to cope with this tragedy without any help from the outside world of counselors. Oh, my gosh, how can someone survive the death of a loved one without counselors?? Why don't you ask that to the populations of the Middle East and southeast Asia? Yeah, the people whose thousands of deaths from all the wars and bombings going on around the world that you casually mention every morning between the wedding dresses and getting germs from cosmetics counters!

More jerks.

Hotels Just Can't Get Enough $$$

So Michael and I used some points and stayed at a pretty nice resort hotel over the weekend. The resort has tennis courts, golf, a gym and spa. I cannot complain about the level of service; there was serious pampering. However, people are spending at least $500 per night, so that service is expected. That brings me to my point (finally). So we stroll over to the the gym just to check it out. There is a $20 fee. One guy is working out, no surprise. Our purpose in getting the hotel was to go out to dinner and not worry about drinking and driving. So we go out to the lobby to get a taxi. Turns out they have a car service and it costs $18 to go about 5 minutes away. A little steep, but no big deal, until, we ask the restaurant to call us a taxi and they say they have a complimentary car for us. We didn't even have to spend $500! Regardless, it was a great night's sleep at the hotel.

So the next morning, we decide to play tennis and walk over to the courts. We ask for a court and find out that it's going to cost us $20 per person. I can see if you're gonna play for hours, but we weren't. We paid anyway because we were there with rackets in hand and all jazzed to play.

I can see the hotel's point of view: people who can afford to stay here shouldn't care about a measly $20 here and there. My point: if a hotel is going to charge that much for a room, a couple of the amenities should be free. I figure with the revenue (both guests and public) from the golf course, the spa and the restaurants, they should allow hotel guests a free workout and some tennis. At least they didn't charge for self-parking; I REALLY HATE that!

Or, they should make you aware beforehand that fees will be charged so that you don't look like a schmuck when they tell you to your face and you want to say, "no, I don't want to pay that, I'll be leaving now."