"Friggin' dog..."

The other day my brother-in-law, Grant, was standing in their back doorway with my nephew, Jake, who's almost 4. They were letting the dog back in the house. Abby is getting a smidge older and does that dog thing where she'll just stand in front of an open door, cock her head and look at you quizzically, like, "What exactly am I supposed to be doing here?"

So they're standing there and all the air conditioning is leaving the house and Grant says, "Abby! Come on."  Abby meanders past them into the house and Jake shakes his head solemnly as he watches her pass. Then Grant hears him  mutter, "Friggin' dog..."

Grant looks up at Nicole. "Oh, real nice language you're teaching the boys."

"Hey," she said. "You're lucky it wasn't the real thing."

Cracks me up. I can only imagine the blue streak that would be coming out of my kids mouth. Frankly, I'm surprised the cats don't walk around muttering "Shit" and "damn it."

Cheers,

Dena

Remember The Pig Eyes??

Blair is working late tonight and I'm here at home, minding my own business. (Isn't that how all good stories start?) I settle in for some VH-1 "Remember the 70's." A happy show, recalling happy times. Until they lead off their tour of the year 1979 with scenes from friggin' AMITYVILLE HORROR!!!!!!

That movie freaked me out as a kid. And all it took was seeing those glowing eye windows and those spooky red pig eyes again to give me the heebie-jeebies. I turned off the TV and walked back to our bedroom, in the dark, and I hadn't yet pulled the blinds so the streetlight was glittering on our chandelier creating fake spooky pig eyes. Augh! If I see one dead fly, I'm calling the cops. Or spiritual cleanser. Whoever can get here the fastest.

What a great movie though. To this day you couldn't pay me to move into a house that has those spooky windows, even if no mass murder was recorded as ever having taken place there.  I bet the real estate value of any home with those windows plummeted after that movie came out.

Okay, I'm going to go read my happy David Sedaris book and not think about glowing swine eyes or basements filled with blood. Really, I'm not. I hope you won't either. Nighty-nite...

VH1 Detox

Help us! Help us! VH1, the music video channel, has magically appeared on our TV and we can't look away. We spent over an hour last night watching VH1 Classic one-hit wonders. Falco, The Divinyls, Big Country...give us more!!!

That was after I'd spent 30 minutes that afternoon watching "Pop-up Video's."

Get it off my TV! Make it go away. I have a life I need to pay attention too...

A Night With David Sedaris

Anyone who knows me knows I worship at the alter of David Sedaris. If ever you are in need of a laugh, run, don't walk, to pick up Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, or the classic The Santaland Diaries , a true account of a grown man working as an elf at Santaland at Macy's Department Store. His writing makes me laugh so hard I want to throw up.

Which is why I was thrilled to score tickets to Sedaris' Greensboro talk this last Thursday.  Most of the talk was him reading his essays which may sound dull but, rest assured, isn't. I was howling along with the rest of the audience.  Hearing Sedaris proclaim his boyfriend Hugh as being too "faggy," was worth attending the concert alone.

I went with two of my writer girlfriends and of course driving home that night we had to pick apart what made Sedaris so successful. For my part, I think he' s just an observer of life. He went to Japan recently and read parts of his diary to us. One entry noted a whole chicken cost $42. Then later he came across 8 strawberries that were $5 each. "My God," he wrote in his diary. "You could almost buy a chicken for that amount!"

At the end of the evening, he answered questions (informing us Ireland was the only place he'd been that reminded him of North Carolina, where he'd grown up, because you'd ask someone the time and 10 minutes later they're still talking at you...) and also recommended a book. Apparently, he recommends a book on every tour he goes on which I find incredibly nice of him and wow--wouldn't you like to be the author on the receiving end of THAT gift?

The book he recommended on Thursday was The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead, written by the son of Mel Brooks.

So there you have it. Zombies, elves, and $42 Japanese chickens. I told you this guy was fun... Give yourself a treat and read one of his books today.