Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Happy New Year! A New Trip Around the Sun!! We Resolve...

Everyone is making resolutions, and we’re certainly not to be left out of that exercise.  We had a pretty spectacular 2017, and anticipating a brilliantly positive 2018...why?  Because WE CAN!

I resolve:

  1. to visualize, when the trade winds are blowing me off my feet, the palm trees are doin’ the hula.

  1. to be patient with SalGal when she tells me the same story for the 63rd time, knowing that the story I just told her, which triggered her old story, was one that I had told her at least 141 times before.  

  1. to keep in my memory bank the feelings of what it’s like to have a crush...with a flush in the cheek, the adrenaline, loss of appetite...and the seventeen red flags that come with another ‘wrong’ man.

  1. to welcome every new wrinkle, skin tag, mole, brown spot, stray hair where it most certainly shouldn’t be, swollen ankle, toe bending in a new direction, abscessed gum and/or new acreages of cellulite.

  1. to stop myself from straightening paintings in other people’s homes.

  1. to start paying more attention to signs...both on the roads and in my head.

  1. to wish more, stifle less.

  1. to broaden my scope, embracing every new experience with arms open and a full scream of ‘BRING IT ON!!”

  1. to have more faith that we humans can actually save the planet.

  1. to always see magical shapes in the clouds

.......There!  That ought to do it, serve me well, keep me sane and allow for modifications and/or expansions as the new year progresses!

KK
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New Year’s Resolutions are a drag.  I make them but I’m not making any promises.  A resolution is a decision, a determination, a solution, an expression of collective opinion…nowhere does its definition mention anything about a promise.  I’m just sayin’.

1. I will do my feet and toenails more often. Middle-aged feet are really ugly…gargoylish.  Heel balm and ‘Dragon’s Blood Red’ do wonders if you stay on top of it.

2. I will not cheat as much on the New York Times crossword puzzles.


3. I will erase most of the original ‘Twilight Zone’ shows on the DVR so that KK can get ‘The CBS Sunday Morning Show,’ ‘Meet The Press’ and ‘Locked Up Abroad’ back on the list.

4. I will not get mad at bad drivers.  They can’t help it if they’re stupid.  I just have to watch out for them and have ‘aloha.’ 

5. I will not put so much salt on my popcorn at the movies.

Okay, fuck it, that’s it. I’m done. 


SalGal  

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Mrs. Claus Wears Prada...


...and from the archives...every year...THIS!!!


Saturday, September 16, 2017

Security Questions No One Could EVER Answer!

The Midlife Gals have been thinking...always a scary prospect...about 'security questions.' You know, the ones you have to make up for online security...or pick the default questions that some idiot thought up to REALLY trick the criminals. Here's our list:

Sal's Security Questions:

What is your favorite vodka?
The cheapest

What is your favorite curse word?
Dick head

What would be your ideal job?
Cocktail contest judge

What was the name of your kindergarten school?
Mother's walk-in closet/purse section

What do you sleep in?
Only step-ins/no jammies

What's your favorite food?
pâté de foie gras or a Frito Pie with extra cheese

*********************************

KK's Security Questions:

In what location did you lose your virginity?
Parent's living room floor

What did you name your current automobile?
Kukla

What goes with olives?
Seriously? Martinis...du'uh.

Which husband was your favorite?
Mr. 3
*******************************
Now, if we can just remember our answers! 

KK and Sal

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

From the Archives:



I love the word, Daddy.  It just sounds like someone you would love.  Of course, I tend to think about things as if they are chapters from a good southern novel, so a Daddy for me connotes a big, strong, handsome man in uniform in an old black and white Polaroid from 1943.  He’s with his Navy buddies on a crowded ship in the middle of the Pacific.  They’re off duty, drunk, smoking and playing poker on an overturned bucket from their bunks below deck.

I picture a Daddy tying his little girl’s shoe laces and teaching her how to make the loop go under and through.  He is patient and funny.  The little girl knows her life parameters from the inside of his embrace.  When she looks up at him, she knows his strength.  She hears laughter roar from his mouth, then drift down to her level as cool air does from a ceiling fan on a hot day.  That’s enough to make anyone smile.

A Daddy to me is someone who is more comfortable and emotionally available with his baby girl child than he could ever be with his wife…just those moments in time where his intimacy is distinctly a Daddy’s, vulnerable and sweeter than a chocolate truffle.  His little girl is the prettiest, smartest and toughest prodigy on the planet…and he’d beat up anyone who disagreed.

Daddys smell of fresh aftershave and starch.  When they’re dressed up, they look so smart.  They seem indestructible and pretty at the same time.  To see a Daddy open the door for his daughter, no matter what age, is crushing in its simplicity and gentleness. To watch this couple dance can break the heart.  To see a Daddy kiss his baby girl goodbye on her way to college can make you cry in your car as you drive by…a total stranger, brought to your knees with that  soft, sweet gesture.

Daddys are protective of their young ladies.  You’d better be a better man than her Daddy if you want to marry his daughter.  He’ll watch you and if you hurt her, he will act like he could kill you, but he’ll rush to her aid and tell her to forget all about you instead because, “Daddy’s here now.”  Daddys buy their girls the best presents when they’re sad.  Nothing is too good or costs too much for a Daddy to see her smile again.

And, if a Daddy’s young woman-girl has a baby girl of her own, he’ll melt at the sight of her, swoon at her whimper and gasp when she giggles.  He gets to do it all over again, and you’ll have to beg him to leave when it’s way past her bedtime.  He’ll begrudgingly go home, and when he sees his own love, the woman who gave him his baby girl and her own girl, he’ll cry in her arms at the excruciating beauty the world can hold.  Daddy’s an old softie.

A Daddy is even more handsome when his own skin is old and soft.  He still smells of aftershave and starch, but also like a tree who will lose its leaves come Fall.  He stands stooped like the tree, but with wisdom that comes from all the seasons of his growth.  Daddys finally learn how lost their girls would be without them and how rooted they are in the periphery of those lives.  They carry a predisposed sadness with them wherever they go, underneath their crooked smiles and inside their clothes…just waiting to go.

I have knowledge that  Daddys are all of these things.  My women friends tell me stories and I laugh and cry
with them.  I use their Daddys as my own.  My Daddy died before I started school, went to my first dance or drove for the first time.  He’s watching me though and smiling down at his baby girl child.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

KK
_________________________________________________________________

I have a few more memories of daddy that KK does because I was every bit of eight years old when he died so suddenly.  My memories of him are like a series of snapshots, all laid out in a row like faded and yellowing pictures of a daydream.

It’s strange, the things that stick in your mind.  I remember his shoes in the bottom of the closet.  He wore black or brown, leather, wingtip shoes.  I can see the bottom of that closet as plain as day in my mind.  I was there often because that’s where our cats always had their kittens.  Mother had a towel in the bottom of the dark, cool closet because she knew Jennifer, our Persian cat, would go there to have her litters of squirmy, wormy baby cats.  I would go and hold them….and look at my daddy’s shoes.  They were big and hard, and smelled of leather and baby powder.

My big, handsome daddy sat in his favorite reading chair every night and read books.  He was known for being an avid reader and would even retreat to a corner with any book he could find, even at a party at somebody else’s house.  Anyway, he would sit in his chair with a book, and with the reading lamp glowing all around him, he looked like a movie star.  Lots of people said he looked just like Ray Miland.  If you ever saw the movie, ‘Golden Earrings’ with Marlene Dietrich, and you saw him come out of the gypsy wagon, (hands on his hips and all decked out like a gypsy), you would know what dashing is.  I would go and sit in his lap and ask him to tell me the story in the book.  I don’t remember what he would say.  I just remember his big hand around my waist, his kiss on my cheek, and his pretty eyes.

I have a telling memory about this big, strong, oilman.  I sat in his lap on the couch and watched the movie, ‘Little Women’ with him.  When Amy died, he cried.  I think he loved little girls.  I put my tiny hand on his face.

I have a very faded picture of me on my daddy’s lap.  He has on a red, flannel shirt and his large man-hands are wrapped around my knees.  I have on my favorite green, velvet dress.  I think I’m four years old.  It’s like I actually remember when this photo was taken.  But that’s impossible….isn’t it?  Our faces are like childhood and wisdom, but seem to go together anyway, in a compatible and yet stunningly different way.  Like the difference between a hard leather shoe…and a kitten that fits inside it.  My memories of him are in a cool, dark place, safe and soft and handled with care.

Our daddy who art in heaven,

Happy Father’s Day,

Sally

Saturday, April 1, 2017

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Saving Daylight...wait, what???

It’s time again for humans to try to change the natural cycle of days and nights.  What a fun game it is.  Of course, it totally fucks with our internal waking and sleeping cycles, but what the hell, let’s mandate changing the clocks.  God laughs.  She laughs as we try to figure out whether to ‘fall back’ or ‘spring forward.’  She guffaws when we say, “Okay, now if it’s 7 am, it’s really 6 am, or if it’s 6 am, it’s really 7 am??”  

Not to mention what it does to our pets.  They have routines.  They like their routines and do not want you to change them.  They feel as if, when it is time to eat, that very minute is sacrosanct.  To the second.  So, if they now have to wait an additional hour, it’s not pretty.  They will scratch your furniture, harm each other in an attempt to get your attention and then look at you as if to say, “If you do not feed me, I will die within the next 60 minutes.  My body cannot survive.  Look at me!  I have to have my dinner, and I mean RIGHT NOW!  Fuck the clock.  What is that thing anyway?”

I’m all for ‘saving daylight,’ because I prefer daylight to darkness, especially at 5 pm.  There is an expression, “burnin’ daylight,’ which, I think, came from a ranch foreman who, when trying to roust his cowboy hands early in the morn, screamed, “Get up you lazy-ass, good-for-nothing, tin horns...you’re burnin’ daylight, and there’s work to do...Cowboy up!”  But, “saving daylight?”  How does one do that?  We’ve been allotted natural cycles of the passing of the sun, and as one with control issues, I understand the premise of wanting to manipulate daylight, but jeez, there are so many other really controllable issues, aren’t there?  Seriously?

There will be people out of sorts for months because of this folly.  Be careful.  Watch out for these people.  They’re angry because they’re missing an extra hour of sleep, or is it that they’re getting an extra hour of sleep?  I get confused.

Cowboy UP!!
KK
**********************
Fall forward…..huh?  That reminds me of the time I tripped on a pebble in an underground parking lot in Glendale.  I landed on my hands and jammed my wrists into my elbows.  Have you ever done that?  You get dirt and gravel stuck in your palms, your whole system is shocked, and the only thing you’re really worried about is if anybody saw you.  What was I talking about….

Oh, yeah, fall forward.  That reminds me of ‘I before E except after C.’  That never made any sense to me either.  Where does the line start?  If your name is after C, then that means the line goes from left to right if you are looking at it from across the street.  But what if the line goes from right to left?  Then the C is at the front but the I or the E is after it.  That’s fucked up.

Fall forward.  That means the clock, right?  So that means you turn the clock to 1AM if it’s midnight.  So, if you wake up at 8 AM, as I am want to do, then for the first few days you are really waking up at 7AM.  That’s before you get acclimated and begin to really wake up at 8AM in your mind.  So…..if it’s 6PM the first night, then it’s really only 5PM….is that right?  Then why is it dark at an earlier time?  It wasn’t dark at 5PM yesterday.  This is so confusing.  This is so wrong for dyslexic people.

Don’t even try to explain any of this madness to me because I don’t give a shit.  As long as the sun comes up, the creek don’t rise, and Tito’s keeps making great vodka, I can survive without everybody else’s manipulations of language and time management.

I need my martini.  What time is it?

SalGal


Saturday, January 14, 2017

A Texan Goes to Nirvana!

Youza!  KK Just received a nice review of her comic mystery novel from Kirkus Indie Review site!

BOOK REVIEW
Debut novelist Jackson tells the story of a world-weary Texan woman at a yoga ashram in this comic thriller.

Forty-year-old Wendy Tate’s third marriage is on the rocks. Her husband recently had an affair with a younger
co-worker, and her own psychiatrist proves useless for anything other than comic relief. Deciding to distract herself by
getting a certificate in yoga instruction, the Texas-raised Wendy leaves her home in Boston for an ashram outside
Louisville, Kentucky. “An ashram is a place where I can go to change my life,” she explains to her skeptical mother.
“Then I’ll come back to Texas and open a little studio and make my living as a yoga teacher.” 

However, Wendy’s initial
impressions of the place aren’t great: the dormitories are in a converted roadside motel; the staff and students are odd,
both in appearance and in personality; and the swami who serves as the community’s guru is a nonsensical old man. As
Wendy sniffs at the meager food and sneaks cigarettes, meat, and booze between classes, she begins to question her
decision to come to the ashram at all—until she discovers an undercover FBI agent on the property who’s investigating
whether the yogi retreat is actually a cult. The agent needs a partner, and Wendy may be the only student who’s cynical
enough to help him take the ashram down. Jackson writes in a sharp, easy-flowing prose that manages to capture the
sardonic voice of her protagonist: “The day was lovely, the sun was shining, she was in the beautiful state of Kentucky,
and Wendy already wanted to kill someone.” The plot moves at a quick clip, and the tone is light enough that even the
narrative’s most unusual aspects feel believable. Some of the plot twists are rather easy to anticipate, and readers may be
somewhat disappointed by the unsurprising ending, but on the whole, the reading experience is enjoyable, compelling,
and leisurely. It’s one of those rare books that ends too soon, which will leave its audience primed for more series
installments.


A fast mystery that benefits from the author’s comedic tilt.

And, for pity's sake, you can buy it on Amazon (for Kindle) for $7.99, which is a bargain for a comic, cosmic mind warp!  Here is the link to the Amazon page:

https://www.amazon.com/Texan-Goes-Nirvana-Kelly-Jackson-ebook/dp/B00E890SXS


ENJOY!!