Protocol, Willie Ames & Pot Pies

1. Here it is, almost the end of National Protocol Officers' Week and what have I done? Damn it, how time flies when you're thinking protocol. The cynical and jaded side of me is suspicious, since the week was sponsored by The Protocol School of Washington, but then again, don't protocol officers need love, too?

2. Nobody told me that Willie Ames lives in Olathe, Kansas (which is just 40 minutes from my dad's house)! (Did you know that for years my ringtone was the theme from "Charles in Charge"?) (Did we care? -Ed.) Or that he was having a huge garage sale?! I heard he's finally getting rid of the kid who played Nicholas on "Eight is Enough". I smell a road trip...

3. Col. Sanders is filling potholes in Louisville, Kentucky. Now you know what they do with the leftover biscuits.

4. The amazing crop art of Col. Sanders above is by Elizabeth Schreiber. (Should I enter the MN State Fair crop art competition? I'm always tempted...)

Have an awesome weekend, Lone Reader! Keep your powder dry!

Roundball and the Cinema

Hello, Lone Reader! Today’s post in three parts:

I. Basketball
Tomorrow is the KU vs. Michigan State basketball game. I’m having some peeps over. It should be a tough game, but I think we can swing it. I do have my big foam finger from 1988, which will be making an appearance at the party. Hopefully I can convince someone to wear the red and blue wig as well. Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!

II. Crap movies
Perhaps because of the suckola weather, I’ve been watching movies like crazy lately. (For those not in MN, yesterday it snowed and it’s been grey and damp for days.) I decided to begin Crap Movie Fest ’09 with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring Beatles songs sung by the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton and, believe it or not, George Burns, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and so many more. Wow, that’s a bad movie. It appears to have stolen a plot from Scooby Doo, with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton playing apparently mute rubes who are chased by the Bad Guys. OMG. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen “She’s Leaving Home” sung by actors dressed as evil cyborgs. The highlight of the film was the finale, with a bizarre assemblage of celebrities (all of whom lacked the common sense to pass on this train wreck) singing Sgt. Pepper. Where else can you see Bowser from Sha Na Na, Leif Garrett, Carol Channing, Gwen Verdon and Seals & Croft all singing along to the worst soundtrack ever committed to celluloid?

Next up in the bad movie category was Xanadu. Brief disclosure – I LOVE XANADU. I’ve seen it several times. The acting is truly remarkable. It’s almost like it’s early computer animation – the wooden expressions, the not-quite life-like delivery of lines. With one of the lamest plots ever (a muse comes to Earth and falls in love) Olivia Newton John, the forgettable (and forgotten) Michael Beck and, sadly Gene Kelly struggle to keep the film afloat. Poor, poor Gene Kelly…you must’ve really needed cash to be the performing monkey in this charade. There’s a painful music video-type sequence with Gene Kelly popping out of dressing rooms in various outrageous get ups. It puts one simultaneously in the mind of the Banana Splits and the pathetic old hooker on the corner, pretending that no one can really see the folds around her lips under the smear of magenta gloss.

III. Better movies
I recently watched Religulous, Rachel Getting Married and Milk. Religulous feels like it’s from the makers of Borat, perhaps because it was. There’s a very fine line between pointing out hypocrisy and contradiction and really making fun of a person’s beliefs. There were certainly funny moments, and thought-provoking factoids, but there was a lot of mean-spiritedness, homogenizing all religious people as lemmings, or worse, bigoted cowards.

Rachel Getting Married and Milk were both harsh, but solid. Excellent performances in both, surprising for me since I don’t much care for Anne Hathaway’s pop-eyed ingénue thing.

This has turned into a novella, Lone Reader, and I must go. Life, not blog, calls me. Stay warm, watch good movies and go Jayhawks!

Love,

Velma

Happy Pi Day!

How will you celebrate? I'm going to have some damn pie, that's what I'm gonna do. (I have a bit of a head cold that is causing me to curse...excuse me.) (Yeah, right. -ed.)

No more of a post than that today - I'm nursing myself back to health with copious amounts of Tab. (Don't you judge me, Lone Reader!)

Happy warm up!
Love, Velma

#1 in Gratitude Journal: No Kangaroo Ninjas

Mon Mar 9, 2:07 pm ET
CANBERRA (Reuters) – An Australian couple thought they were being attacked by an intruder when a kangaroo crashed through their bedroom window and started jumping on them.

"My initial thought, when I was half awake, was it's a lunatic ninja coming through the window. It seems about as likely as a kangaroo breaking in," Beat Ettlin told local media Monday.

The three-meter (9 feet) kangaroo smashed through the window in Ettlin's Canberra home Sunday night. While Ettlin and his wife and young daughter took refuge under the blankets, the injured kangaroo jumped on top of them, gouging holes in the furniture and smearing blood all over the walls, said the Australian Associated Press. The next thing Ettlin heard was his 10-year-old son Leighton screaming from his bed: "There's a 'roo in my room!'" Ettlin, a 42-year-old chef, wrestled the bleeding kangaroo, got it into a headlock and dragged it out the front door. The kangaroo disappeared into bushes. (Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Dean Yates)

This makes my morning with two crabby kids and a grant due seem better. Ya gotta find your bliss where you can, Lone Reader.

Buttermilk Pie

So, I made buttermilk pie yesterday...blecch! I had buttermilk left over from another cooking adventure and thought I'd try a super easy recipe in the ATK Family Cookbook. OMG, it is so dang sweet. Yowza. So, for not wanting to waste the buttermilk, I threw a fair amount of butter, sugar eggs and flour away as well.

On the plus side, I'm thinking of serving it to the squirrel to send him into a diabetic coma.

Today is National Napping Day!

Yes, it's national napping day. How will you be celebrating, Lone Reader? I'll be celebrating by breaking up numerous arguments (no school today) and working on a federal grant. Sigh. It seems like there might be a more appropriate way to celebrate...

Open Letter to the Squirrel in My Attic

Image from Grey Squirrels Disturbing on cafepress

Dear Rodent:

You don’t get to judge me, Mister. Okay, I have a lot of Christmas decorations up here…eleven Rubbermaid tubs, to be exact. So what? Like you don’t hoard crap? At least mine is dutifully labeled. And so I have every piece of paper I ever laid a finger on in grad school – big deal! I might need to know something about 17th century Dutch genre paintings by Jan Steen and then where would I be? I can’t ask you for input now, can I?!

It’s been fun for you, I’m sure, reading my old research papers, mocking my pseudo-intellectual art historical prose. It was the 90s! Everyone wrote like that! And yeah, that IS a Colin Powell GI Joe doll in the corner. It’s propped up on the cedar chest – you know, the one with the broken lock? Who knows what’s in there…I digress.

Look, I’m going to give you a choice here. We can play nice or we can play hard. Scenario A has you coming down out my attic on your own accord, allow me to dress you in a vest and small hat and then walk you about my neighborhood on a long silver leash, demonstrating your willingness to be my personal mascot/sidekick for wacky high jinx and crime solving. Scenario B has me throwing your squirrelly ass out a third story window. What’s it gonna be, Mister?

You have until high noon.

Love,
Velma

PS If you’re looking for nesting materials to take with you on your way out, I’ll happily contribute my ex-husband’s 43 old copies of Wired magazine. The box can follow you out the window.