Welcome to April Finally Writes

My blog

2010-06-26T12:55:00.001-07:00

Hello All,

I have attached a link to my blog which has several articles on it now. I have 18 actual followers! I am trying to get this to circulate with the ultimate goal of building content and publishing and of course entertaining folks. My writing is a light, funny read for the most part. I don’t do politics, drama, or routine status updates about my next doctor’s appointment or car repair.

Please share the link to anyone you think might enjoy it. My supporters will get front row seats at my first book signing and a 20 minute supply of Ibuprofen. I know there is a place for me in the literary world somewhere between teenage vampire lust and the DIY Guide for a Complete Garage Makeover.

If you don’t want to receive new posts, let me know.

Enjoy!

http://aprilfinallywrites.blogspot.com/

Diamond Cupcake Sprinkles

2010-06-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

I went to a Gold Party. Now I’ve been to every home party out there - Tupperware, Mary Kay, Jewels by Park Lane, Pampered Chef (isn’t this an oxymoron?), Passions Party, Creative Memories (the implication here is that if your actual memories suck, you can create better ones) Weekender’s clothes ($75 for spandex pants? Can’t I just take my sweats to Vegas? They don’t wrinkle either.)

Okay, so a Gold Party rocks.

It’s easy for my friend Jen to lure me in, she says, “Wine and appetizers.” That’s a no brainer. Self-esteem-rattling day at work, teenager with failing report card, menstrual bloat, what better way to ebb the demons of stress and self-degradation than alcohol and finger food.

I race home from work and pillage my jewelry box over a glass of wine. I have a smattering of gold chains from which dangle bobbles that might have been fashionable in 1982. There is one earring because the other one is no doubt laying on the floorboard of an ex-boyfriend’s Camaro (aka AMC Pacer); a filigree owl with a loop to attach charms, also from the 80s. A Lapis Lazuli circle resembling a lifesaver candy framed in Chinese characters. I brutally unpair chains from pendants suddenly lusting after any yellow metal in the hopes that it might be actual gold. The irony that I may be replacing some of the stuff almost instantly is not lost on me.

I arrive at my friend’s home with a small box of trinkets thinking that I’ll be lucky if my cache of unwanted accessories brings me enough to pay for the gas I used to drive there. I lay my humble pile out, fill out the information card and head into the kitchen to find the Cab.

Twenty minutes later the Gold Lady calls out my name. I see my chains, necklaces and rings stacked in a misshapen heap like accident victims. She has applied a little dremmel tool to most items separating stones from the precious metal. She is wearing one of those jewelers visors that resembles a mini welder’s shield and I ponder how is it she looks totally cool with that thing on her head?

We have deposited once precious pieces here, items given by lovers, beloved aunts, revered mothers, grandmothers who were our best friends. It comes down to a few squirts of acid, the weight and feel of it in her expert hands and we discover that half of our treasures are just ordinary memories and nothing more. But there are a few things that pass muster.

I approach the table and see the carcass of a pendent I surrendered. There is a pang of sorrow as I realize I have given over that memory and now it’s gone forever. There will be no sentimental grasp of its warm lustre evermore.

The Gold Lady has extracted 23 miniscule baguette diamonds from my pendant. My “precious gems” are in a plastic bag not unlike the ones used by drug dealers to parcel out their product. I have no doubt that an 1/8 of an ounce of marijuana is more valuable than the 1/8 of a teaspoon of diamond shards just handed to me. The fact that the Gold Lady even extracted and kept track of them is a miracle in my mind, since most of us would have flicked them onto the carpet like bread crumbs.

Fascinated, I fetch a full glass of red wine.

At the table, the Gold Lady who is charming and beautiful in her jewelers mask and latex gloves asks me to speculate on the value of my trove.

“$100?” I mutter, complacent, sheepish.

“$205” She says brightly.

Really? Suddenly she is snapping my photograph and handing me two crisp Ben Franklins. I resist the immediate urge to hold them up to the light and see if they are real. They are accompanied by a worn out five dollar bill (thank you Abe.)

I am almost ashamed. Every “home party” I’ve ever attended usually resulted in the emptying of my wallet - NEVER the other way around. I start to churn. What if I had a party selling doo dads or gadgets preceded by the GOLD PARTY? Imagine liquidating the crap your college boyfriend gave you and getting $500 to spend on new jewelry or a state of the art spatula? Paired with the precise over-pouring of Cabernet, I could make out like a bandit.

What a hot idea… Income stream coupled with an immediate shopping outlet. That’s a chick’s dream, right?

Well, actually after I pocketed my $205, I had another idea. I was holding the mini-Ziploc bag up to the light noting that even tiny diamonds sparkle.

What in the name of Todd (more on taking Todd’s name in vain later) am I supposed to do with these?

And then it hits me. My 45th birthday is coming up.

The Ultimate Cupcake Sprinkles!

I am enchanted. Dark chocolate cupcake, a silver cupcake paper, its accordion spines shimmering in the July sun, pale pink butter cream frosting and…

23 Diamond Sprinkles…

You know that disgusting peppermint Schnapps, with the gold flake in it? I’ve been drunk on that, pretty sure I vomited up a Krugerrand. But Diamond Cupcake Sprinkles! Suddenly I am seized with excitement, my plan seems flawless. I am committed to the idea that I will adorn my 45th birthday cake with actual diamonds.

As soon as I spew my exciting idea, I look at the Gold Lady. She immediately perceives the inherent danger. Diamonds are the hardest substance on earth. 23 tiny rocks have to make it through my nether-regions and suddenly the concept of a perforated bowel and scraped intestines blooms. Gold Lady agrees – this is a VERY BADY IDEA.

Dammit..

Now I have to Google it, or BING (does this really stand for Because It’s Not Google)? Do I have to seek the opinion of a medical professional before ingesting what amounts to $40 worth of diamonds? What about the dirt and rocks happily consumed by children? Aren’t we biologically predisposed to take in at least of 10% of our body weight in things that are questionably digestible such as orange colored petroleum food products like Velveeta?

And what of all the health stuff out there? Ever tried “colon hydrotherapy”? Yes, may I please pay $70 for a turbo-enema? How about magnetic insoles, hemp lotion (all the moisture, none of the high), charcoal supplements, blue algae, acai berries, ohm, Namaste, ob la di, ob la da…

So how can a mouse turd’s worth of baguette diamonds possibly pose a threat as cupcake embellishments?

I beg for an answer…

Game on.

The Truth About Toilet Seat Covers...

2010-05-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

Who for one second believes that a micro-thin layer of wood pulp actually prevents bacteria from sticking to your butt? Really? Frankly, they are a bother. Chances are a public toilet nice enough to offer a full dispenser of toilet seat covers also has perky ladies that come in after hours and disinfect the entire toilet daily. I can’t say the same for my house. I usually do a lid check for splatters prior to friends arriving and if there are no visible signs of filth, we’re good to go.

And yet, despite my conviction that the ridiculous tissue paper film is useless, I reach for one each time. Why?

Because, what in the name of God will others think of me if I sit on a bare toilet seat?

Usually, I collect one anticipating that there will be one of two outcomes:

It will rip in half while I attempt to disengage the center piece from the edges.
If successfully placed on the seat, the center piece will fall into the water followed unceremoniously by the rest of the cover while I fiddle with my array of buttons, latches, control top panty hose and zippers.

I estimate that this occurs 94% of the time. 6% of the time, I successfully navigate buttocks placement and finish my business and when I stand up…

The f***ing thing is stuck to my ass as a result of static electricity. This is a recent development and I can only blame it on the fall of stock prices or bad Chinese imports or anything not related to electron migration from my backside. I am loathe to think how that whole thing goes down.

At work, the seat covers have visible particles of wood embedded in them and come in a package labeled, “Rest Assured”. Encircling this provocative statement is, “Clean-Safety-Clean…Safety-Clean-Safety.”

Rest Assured? Assured of what, that my bottom is uber-safe from harmful ick? Did I miss something on Good Morning America about a pandemic caused by toilet seat cover failure? I suggest that we just smear that gelatinized grain alcohol masquerading under the label “Hand Sanitizer” over the seat and be done. My friend Pam points out that there is a good likelihood that the laws of physics will come into play and we will slide off the seat almost instantly. But I haven’t let go of the concept, I mean really, if the whole business down there is disinfected, then why do we need hand sanitizer? Frankly, hand sanitizer is just a 15 second opportunity to get high in the office restroom before returning to work anyway.

Let’s break this down further. Clean? Okay, I see what they’re implying with clean, but safety? Is there a chance I am going to be injured during my toilet experience if I don’ t use a seat cover? I’ve never thought of that! Again, I am trolling the internet to find relevant information about injuries sustained while using the toilet and the safety statistics of toilet seat covers.

Go ahead and Google it, I dare you.

So what the hell do you think of the person in the adjacent stall who deliberately omits the application of the seat cover? Do you assume she’s hovering, in which case she is making a mess for the patron that follows her…if you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.” ...whatever.

Really, unless you have Peyton Manning’s quads, who are you fooling? I can no more hold myself up at a 45 degree squat over a toilet seat than I can do a one-armed push up with Gerard Butler on my back. Those girls that say they hover are lying or they are 25 and weigh 109 pounds or they hover but brace themselves with two hands on the seat which is more disgusting. At least if my butt gets stuff on it, I can pull my panties on and go about my day. If my hands touch the seat, then I’m left to the mercy of some watery soap that squirts out smelling like somebody’s grandmother.

And here’s the confession…

Sometimes, I pull a seat cover out and make rustling noises with it and then I wad it up and throw it in the bowl. I pause a moment to see if anyone figured out what just happened. I thought I was the only one whoever did this until one day when I queried my friends who sheepishly confessed to similar indiscretions. I hugged them fiercely.

So join the rebellion, go commando on your next privy visit. Survey says?

Beauty, Bras and Canadian Tourists....

2010-04-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

April 24, 2010

I just paid $55 for a bra! It makes my bosoms look magnificent. Never mind the fact there is as much hardware on it as my minivan. Back fat is squished up and out of all edges like putting a rubber band around a bag of frosting but my breasts are riding high and firm!

I’m trying not to grimace at the folds and pleats on my body that weren’t there, well, yesterday when I had on a cheap bra that did little more than conceal a cold breeze. Who am I kidding? They were there, discreetly concealed under a shirt that is generous enough to hide that shit. Thank the heavens for BLACK anything. I am running my hands over the mounds willing them away. It’s an aggregate of moose tracks ice cream and vodka, carefully collected over the last 20 years. I’ve seen round butts and full bellies and on other women and they look curvy and natural and beautiful to me. But when the svelte clerk at Victoria’s Secret is scrambling to find something in a 38 DD that isn’t the color of somebody’s grandmother’s single-wide, I feel, well…

FAT, humongous, bulbous.

I know that somebody thinks I’m sexy, my boyfriend doesn’t complain, my friends think I’m hot so where is that nasty little bitch that is whispering, “that's disgusting!”? When I find her, I’m going to kick her sorry ass. I have beautiful green eyes and softly curled red hair. I am smart, funny, compassionate and sexy. Who cares if there are tufts of flesh bubbling up out of the confines of a bra that could undoubtedly hold up a Buick. 38DD is a respectable dimension, some Hollywood ladies pay good money for those measurements. Of course they mount those babies on a size two frame and they have the asses of 18 year old boys. Is that attractive? Must be, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry – objectifying women.

Once I take this thing off, out will pop the grapefruits in tube socks, oh boy! Only, they won’t pop; they will descend toward my navel and if I lay down, they will nest in my arm pits. Oh God, who thinks that is sexy? I want his cell number.

I console myself with a big fat Grey Goose and tonic. I remind myself that there is much more to me than my boobs or droopy ass. I am fun to be with, I am reliable, I can cook and I can steer a 40 foot dragon boat without puncturing yachts in the marina. I am a good mother, a good bank employee, a good sister, daughter, friend. My first husband blamed my size on his lack of sexual interest in me even though I gained just 15 pounds more than when we married. I am today 20 pounds heavier than that and as far as I can tell, there is at least one or two men who might want to see me naked… and no, I don’t have to give them money.

Last summer, I had a crush on a man on my dragon boat team. He was strikingly handsome and we flirted on a few occasions. When the team went to Victoria BC for races, I was thrilled that I might get to spend some time with him. One night at dinner, he was chatting and I overheard him say that he had not met any women recently that he was attracted to. That solved that puzzle – he had ample time and space to get to know me better on that trip, so if he was going to, he would have. Insecurity caked over me like wet mud.

At that same dinner, I left to use the ladies room. I had stopped to admire the artwork along the hallway when out of the men’s room came a young, handsome Canadian man. He bounced into me and said, “Excuse me!” I smiled and he started to talk to me.

“Are you a tourist?” Really? I am wearing an oversized red hoodie with a giant white maple leaf on it, do you think I’m not a tourist? I explained that yes, of course I was a tourist, in town for the Victoria Dragon Boat Races and Festival.

“Do you want to make out?”

What? Did he just say, do you want to make out? Holy Mother of God…

“Make out, like kissing?” I say, surely there is a catch or this will cost money or I will be on some inane Canadian Reality Show…Local hotties hit on fat American tourists, film at 11:00 or local serial killer strikes again, stupid American woman found dead in men's room…

“Yeah, that’s what we do here in Canada, we make out.”

“Make out, like no hanky panky, just making out, kissing, that’s it?”

”Yeah, it will be fun, let’s go!” He asks my name and tells me his – it’s Paul.

Paul has a hybrid Canadian-Irish accent and there is not a damn thing unattractive or even creepy about him that I can detect. He is not overtly intoxicated nor am I at this point and I am pondering what in the hell could be appealing about me in an oversized red sweatshirt. I’ve been racing on Inner Harbour all day, no make up, hair blown in three different directions, and Oh God, the huge white maple leaf festooned across my rack! It causes me to blurt out, “But you’re so attractive...” as if to say, why the hell would you want to kiss me?

Paul says, ”Yes – you are.” Okay, game on, that puts me over the edge of restraint and I agree to “make out” with Paul. He ushers me by the hand into the men’s room of this swank restaurant, locks us into a stall and we proceed to make out.

He is a great kisser, there is groping to be sure, and I shoo his hands away from the danger zones. I am not about to go “all the way” with a stranger, albeit young, foreign and handsome, in a men’s restroom in Victoria, British Columbia. I am reminded of my handsome and young first husband, also Canadian and am pronged with a spur of sadness but only for a moment. The “making out” lasts all of five minutes until my logic sensors decide to push him away from me before things get out of hand. He does not persist to my relief.

Back in the hallway, I tell him that he’s made my weekend, hell, my year. He smiles and walks away. He turns back and says, “Hey!”

“yes?”

“What’s my name?”

“Paul…” I say smiling, still not sure that any of it just happened. He says, “Will you remember me?”

Yes, for the rest of my life.

And that is the story of how I know I’m attractive, $55 bra or not.

2010-02-06T10:34:00.001-08:00

Alas, I am out of firewood….

2010-02-02T22:30:00.000-08:00

Fire is cathartic. It crackles and spits and heats and whatever shame you are carrying can be tossed into the flame, figuratively or really. I have tossed empty liquor bottles into bon fires on camping trips and then retrieved the molten, brittle art form out of the ash the next day thinking it made the coolest souvenir. Letters from old lovers, the cigarettes you didn't want your mom to find, an ill-gotten candy wrapper.

Yes, the fire is good. It warms and it is a labor of love. I live in a small apartment which boasts a "fireplace" as one of it's amenities. My fireplace is about the size of a microwave oven. An average split log if placed perpendicular to the back wall will jut out into the living room. I put them at slants or stack them against the back, where on a good day, they will stay precariously tilted amongst one another and burn peacefully. On other days, the wads of newspaper I used to ignite them will burn down and the whole stack will tumble onto the tile narrowly missing the highly flammable carpet which is undoubtedly spun from some ill-begotten petroleum product.

My friend is kind enough to bring the splitting maul his mother gave him and make kindling and other pieces that actually fit. When I come home from work, when the apartment is frigid and my mind is spent, the siren song of the fire is palpable. I want to be warm and bask in the pale amber light. We are beautiful by firelight. The dirtiest most disheveled people huddled around the most robust of camp fires are like small demi-gods with glowing gorgeous faces. Fire is life, the miracle of cooked food, warmth, resurrection, and purification. I want it - every spitting ember, the prickling heat, the thrust of the flame searching every crevice for air and fuel.

Next comes my own personal game of Jenga Inferno. I have watched my friend (same with maul) wad up most of the Sunday paper into tidy little grenades and criss-cross kindling over them. With one match, the flame erupts across the foot of the pile. In moments the fire is alive and the cat is happy (more on this later).

I come home to an empty apartment and I meticulously wad up the paper and weave the kindling into a leaning tower. I light it. In about 90 seconds, the newspaper vaporizes and wood is tumbling onto the carpet and my apartment is filling with smoke. The cat has joined me on my knees but he has an entirely different agenda. He wants the fire too because he is old and skinny and his bones no doubt, ache. He is ardently waiting for there to be heat and the fact that his intrusion prohibits me from effective fire management is of little consequence to him. He vocalizes his disapproval.

Now all the paper is twirling bits of flat ash and none of the kindling is alight. Plenty of it is smoking and it occurs to me that I will have to open at least two windows to start venting the soot which will, of course, let in the cold air. So much for my economic green solution to turning on the baseboard heater. I decide that the best solution is wad up more paper and use my barbecue tongs to reconfigure the singed kindling for another pass at ignition. This routine goes on until I get frustrated enough to open a bottle of wine. But not to be out done by my houseguest who shows up and seemingly ignites piles of damp logs with magical fairy sparks out the end of his fingers, I blow and pant and keep lighting wads of paper until the right chemical configuration of fuel-heat-oxygen is produced. Jenga be dammed, my helter skelter throw of sticks is now burning adequately enough to consider tossing on an actual piece of firewood.

The cat is laying 18 inches from the flame. Air pockets collapse and explode and projectiles of coal rocket out between the gnarled (and useless) mesh screen. The cat is on fire but barely notices. I brush the embers from his long fur, noting that it is too hot to touch. I wonder if he will die happily here, driven by a primal mad instinct to be comfortable. The fire is his love language, he requires nothing further in the way of consolation at this moment. I want to be him, singularly driven by the consummation of one desire.

To be warm, content, sleeping; blissfully unaware that bills will arrive, lovers will leave, jobs will be lost, friends will die. At that moment, all of his worldly needs are met. The flame has chased off discomfort, doubt and despair.

I am the cat or the flame or both or none. I am grateful that the fire burns. Friends brought me the wood, God the flame. Tonight I will be content in the burning…

Cold and Hungry...

2009-12-08T23:19:00.000-08:00

It's 29 degrees, or maybe by now only 17. I am appalled by a few things tonight, so I will name a few, keep my amblings brief or my briefs ambling which would be infinitely more entertaining.

First off, I must give tribute to my brother Terry's blog at www.organizationalstars.com. Terry's writing is thought provoking and insightful whereas mine is more like a mischievous wood nymph who rearranges QWERTY to mean something immoral. At first I was bitter and resentful that I would have competition from my brother on the blog circuit and then I understood that that's the beauty of blogging - there is room for all of us. I might get serious here, I started to and then digressed into MWN (see aforementioned reference). Maybe Mischievous Wood Nymph can be a separate column where I discuss life's quandaries like putting in panty liners wrong side up or forgetting to shave before you go for a pedicure. But, really, I do have some stuff I want to get out.

Oh faithful reader(s). I can use the conditional (s) because now there are 10 of you!!! Yea! If you had any idea how happy it makes me to be well received or at least mind-numbingly entertaining for 4 minutes.!!!

...pause here to change album on I-Pod, speaking of mind-numbing...

Thank you for following me, for reading my, uh, content..thoughts..writing. Oh dear, does this mean I'm an AUTHOR?

yes, apparently with the attention span of a stapler.

Okay, back to the weather (ironic, huh?). It seems that everyone is struggling. Last week, countless people tried to make sense of the execution of four police officers in Lakewood Washington. I cannot even fathom the devastation of their loss.

I read an article about two people who met in a warming shelter last winter and are now married. The woman is just two years older than me and has health problems and is in a wheel chair. At 46 years old, she's been living on the streets 32 years. I get cranky after five days of camping. And even camping, I usually have a dignified place to pee. I don't camp when it's 17 degrees outside... during the day!

But two people found love in impossible circumstances. They fell in love, homeless, and got married, homeless, and are now seeking shelter from bone-deep cold, hoping that the shelter they land in will allow couples to stay together. They smile in the newspaper photo, they have learned to tolerate the most heinous discomfort. For them, there are no holiday cocktail parties, no fat steaming turkeys festooning burgeoning tables surrounded by 20 bleating celebrants. No, they are content to be warm for eight hours before they are shuffled back onto the street. They are discarded unseen observers. Petulant shoppers will scurry by them, competing for parking spaces, digging for keys in deep Coach handbags. People will contemplate their loose change until the light changes and then they will speed by, cars with heated seats, avoiding eye contact.

And yet the couple smiles. They are in love. They will think about much more than loose change. Change doesn't come loose in their grip. It is revered and metered out in increments. $1.25 might buy them enough coffee to stand in the corner of a convenience market until toes and fingers are warm enough to trudge on.

These things overwhelm me. I have a particular esteem for homeless people. Many of them suffer from mental illness they can not escape. Origins are unclear and frankly without meaning at this point. They were somebody's precious child, ambitious adolescents, hopeful young adults. Dreams and determination succumb to the plague of addiction, abuse and poverty. Illness goes untreated, despair unanswered.

So, whatever you embrace as December locks out the daylight: Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwanza, Chanukah, none of that is as important as celebrating your humanity, your comfort, and the gifts of faith and love.

NAME MY BLOG AND WIN!!!

2009-12-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

Can you come up with a clever name for my blog? If I choose your name, you may be already be a winner. DON'T DELAY, BE THE FIRST CALLER, BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

Really, I don't know how what I do here translates. What title would remind you to look here? What phrase might bring others to this rhetorical rain that I leave here...

Enter today and you could win...

1. A 20 minute supply of Ibuprofen
2. Medical grade orthotics
3. Barry Manilow's entire 8-track collection*
4. A set of 4 support socks in fashion colors
5. "Team Edward" tee shirt
6. Slightly used Harry Potter wand
7. 24 pack of Old Milwaukee
8. A First Edition Metolius Black Bucket
9. The Missing Keg Tap
10. Adam Lambert CD

Game on!

*my luck, one of you will actually want this and I wil spend $4700 on ebay getting it...

About the Chinese Hamster Ovaries

2009-12-01T22:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, let me just say that mixing my overzealous romantic delusions about Adam Lambert with the topic of Chinese Hamster Ovaries was just too much even for me.

There will be more on this later but here is some food for thought. The medications used to treat Multiple Sclerosis range in price from $2500 to $5000 per month. A very dear friend of mine was recently diagnosed with MS. I don't know what I thought MS was but I didn't know much until now. How perfectly awful! And it seems so ridiculous, your own immune system attacks the myelin which is the casing around your nerves. Some of you are probably close to this disease or know someone who lives with it. This is a life changing event for me and my friend because up until now, ailing and aging was something that happened to other people, not us. She is strong and stoic and when I talk to her, she never crumbles. If her chins begins to quiver, she draws in a deep breath and talks about what she has done to arm herself in the battle or what’s for dinner. She can do that, she has a very toned “so what’ muscle and she uses it when she needs to kick the crap out of life.

So, she is telling me the price range of Interferon drugs used to slow the progression of the immune system’s attack. I am incredulous, sad, livid. She then explains to me why. The drugs are not produced chemically, in other words, the pharmaceutical companies don’t just cook this and add that and make a pill. No, she tells me, they grow the compound in Chinese Hamster Ovaries.

Really? I am still studying her as though she just explained how one might change a light bulb. And then I feel the slightest tension in the corners of my mouth. It starts as a giggle, one that I try vehemently to stifle. I can’t. It’s just too funny. Every aspect, Chinese Hamsters? Not North American or Peruvian or PetCo hamsters? Do they import them or are they churned out of local “hamster farms”. Are female hamsters forced into high-production breeding? I picture little fuzzy beige rodents hooked up to mini-machines, exchanging whatever fluids must be combined to produce something that preserves myelin in a human being.

Seriously? Chinese Hamster Ovaries? I am gone now, I start to hitch and cough. Now she is laughing, we are crying. For 15 minutes, $3000 a month medication, an uncertain future, our fear, our mortality is pushed off. For days Chinese Hamster Ovaries will chase off a number of demons.

So what?

ADAM LAMBERT..TWITTER PATED AT 44!

2009-12-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

First of all, you can't judge me... I FREAKIN LOVE ADAM LAMBERT. For those of you who don't know, he was the runner up in last year's American Idol competition. He's dubiously gay, or bi, or not. He did a most controversial performance at the American Music Awards last week (dragging leather-clad, half naked men and women around stage on leashes - if you're interested go watch on YouTube) and now everyone is talking about how over the top it was, but to be fair, somebody thought it was good idea, you don’t get a prime time performance on AMA full of innuendo ‘n stuff and nobody noticed before you go live that it’s, um, inappropriate.

But I don't care about any of that. He was remarkably adorable and infinitely talented on AI. Sweet, unassuming, liquid silver eyes (yes, black liner aside, silver). I have forgiven him for being prettier than I am because he offsets it with spikes and leather and rivets and manly things that make him an almost irresistible boy-goddess. I say that because he is very attractive, even when he's got more make up on than a Mary Kay Cadillac. I remember in high school when Boy George graced the cover of the, oh crap, I'm going to have to Google the name of the band, what the hell? Suzanne will tell me later. Anyway, I was indignant that a fairly “unattractive girl made a band’s album cover. It wasn’t until later that I realized that ugly “girl” was Boy George.

I am NOT prettier than Adam Lambert and I’m really okay with that. When he sings, out come sounds like melted caramel. The songs cover every visceral romantic experience from lust to heartache to redemption. His new album, For Your Entertainment, is stellar in my opinion.

I love every song on it, it is mostly teenager friendly (be prepared to explain a few things), you can dance to it, it's makes you happy, sad, giddy - all at once.

Okay, so when did I turn my blog into an album review? I have no musical discernment. My father is a gifted musician and when he plays the piano in the background while I'm setting the dinner table, his music fills the room like warm firelight. Today's pop music lacks tonality, melody, chord complexity and overall musical meat for the most part. I listen to music for the emotional response it evokes. It has to reach me in the part of me that sees life in colors and textures.  Music inspires me to write, to cry, to feel things that are often just out of my consciousness. Adam Lambert's songs do something like that to me. And I can say that I knew him when... When what April?... when you sat your sorry ass on the couch eating Moose Tracks ice cream and drinking bad Cab?

He was just a pudgy 26 year old with sometimes overdone hair and black eyeliner hoping that he would get that infamous yellow ticket to Hollywood (see AI website if you're lost here). Somehow because I watched him evolve over every episode last season, I feel like we're old friends. Remarkably though, I have a crush like a sweaty 13 year old girl. I can see putting Adam Lambert posters up in my room and downloading his songs as ringtones. I suddenly want to stock up on the black mascara that comes in the pink and green tube and can be acquired at any 7-11 checkout counter. What's going on?  Like I actually get a little, okay, wait for it...

twitter-pated.

you heard me. I haven't been twitter-anything since 1982 when Kent Buehler asked me to meet him at the Portland Club Plaza. I thought it was physiologically impossible to twitter-pate at 44. There are some other -ate things that still work for me.
Migrate (downward facing boobs)
Urinate (only when I laugh or sneeze)
Flatulate (eeeww)
But twitter-PATE? Oh hell no.

So, I just had to talk about Adam Lambert, he's my new favorite thing. He will be on Barbara Walters' 10 most fascinating people of 2009 on 12/9/09 just in case you wanted to know. Funny thing is, Adam didn't win American Idol. It was Kris somebody. Jessica says that Kris should call his first album, Kris Who? And when Kris won, he was shocked that Adam didn't win. They hugged, Adam smiled and wished him the best. He knew...

..."I'm gonna take you to the top to the brink of what you believe."
     -Sure Fire Winners, For Your Entertainment
Adam Lambert

CANADIAN OIL, LOW ACID

2009-11-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

My friend Suzanne is brilliant. She is articulate, beautiful, funny, wise beyond measure and brilliant. I had to say it again because even though I've known this for some time, I really want to be sure you are paying attention.

She has for years collected and retained information that the average person would have reason to recall only if they were on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, which is stupid, like, Regis or Meredith, duh, who DOESN'T want to be a millionaire? I think that would be a funnier show, but I digress. Back to Suzanne, information you need to know say if you're getting a doctorate in philosophical-sociological rhetoric of the 21st century and it's technical applications, notwithstanding the use of slang and antiquated knowledge.

I just made all that up... Suzanne has, for years, been absolutely stoic in the delivery of statements that rendered me useless for no less than 10 minutes. I will describe this more later. Her comedic timing is unintentional which makes it even more amazing and her delivery of information is methodically sincere, she has no particular agenda, no intention to correct or overbear. She just has facts and knowledge, stored up in her gray matter like a reassuring supply of beans and bacon during a famine. And if there was any person well versed in combatting intellectual famine - it would be Suzanne.

Some people revel in telling you stuff they think you ought to know. The purveyors of "THEY SAY", self-proclaimed experts on matters of health, money, child rearing, and relationships. They say you shouldn't eat red meat...they say you should invest in mutual funds...they say you should get your oil changed every 3000 miles. Is that so? Well who are THEY and why do THEY think they run the universe? Suzanne on the other hand, never quotes, THEY except very accidentally and because it's a life-long habit of circumstance. Try running a bibliography of every snippet of good advice or interesting factoid in your head to credit the origins of things you happen to know. Sometimes THEY are just those guys who you can't remember who printed an article in a ladies' magazine you read while having a pedicure. And THEY say, canola oil is better for you than vegetable oil and sometimes even olive oil. Seriously, I'm not making this up. (totally plagiarizing Dave Barry here.)

Suzanne and I use the buddy system to shop at WinCo. WinCo is one of those warehousy grocery stores replete with overgrown families trolling the aisles keeping toddlers at bay. It's not like Costco which has lighting that makes even the flimsiest diamond sparkle, it's more a big discount place, cheaper this and cheaper that, no credit cards and you have to do the grocery bagging (the pressure of which causes me great anxiety) yourself and God help you if you forget something because it takes 15 minutes to get back to dairy - if you have your own golf cart that is. Suzanne and I go together because we hate it and we comfort one another while managing the large unwieldy shopping carts and navigating throngs of people. Why it is that no one seems as anxious to get their goods and get out as we do is a mystery. But today, Suzanne's list is small, she needs a few essentials, coffee, cheese, cereal, broccoli and COOKING OIL.

Well, if you haven't bought cooking oil lately, let me tell you, you're gonna need a spreadsheet and a couple of field manuals to make sure you don't screw up and end up with something totally likely to congest all of your heart valves. Watch out for HYDROGENATED anything, once the miracle butter replacement, hardened, artificially-colored petroleum products, while handy and less expensive than butter, are apparently responsible for high cholesterol, bad skin, heart attacks and Donald Trump's hair. So, unless you're baking competitive pie crusts, the SHORTENING (what does that mean anyway? Suzanne probably knows..) is out. Okay, so olive oil then, good for you, natural, plenty of Omega-3s and it costs roughly the same per quart as your first car. And please God, don't get the plain old olive oil it tastes like something moldy also from your first car. No, you need virgin olive oil (will someone explain what it hasn't done yet that makes it virgin?) slightly nutty, good at high temps for cooking, very good for you. But wait!

THEY SAY NOW THAT CANOLA OIL IS EVEN BETTER!!! So down the oil aisle (say that fast 3 times) and I find myself slowing our mutual cart down because I'm a mother and I'm about to mother Suzanne even though she doesn't need me to and I know better, but THEY SAY THAT CANOLA OIL IS BEST, so before I can filter, I just blurt out, "Here's the Canola oil!" But before I can impress upon Suzanne my cache of understanding about the superiority of canola oil, she levels me with, "You know there is no such thing as a canola."

What? Immediate confusion, fear.

What do you mean? Olive oil is from pressed olives, corn oil from pressed corn and canola oil is from pressed canola. Right? It never even occurred to me that canola wasn't some leafy green thing that probably stinks but makes heart-healthy oil when pressed or boiled or irradiated. Isn't canola a plant? Didn't my grandmother grow those or was it columbine or calendula? I refute her statement, vehemently for about 107 seconds. That's all it takes to absorb how remarkably funny that statement is. She didn't even twitch the corners of her mouth, her lips remained motionless and her marbled blue eyes dead on. Suzanne is NOT a jester or yanker of chains. I just laugh, almost to the point of peeing a little which has become a constant hazard since bearing a child and reaching the age of 40 (okay, passing it, whatever). Suzanne sees that not only do I not believe her, she will have to elaborate if she plans on getting me to push the cart any further.

"What do you mean there is no such thing as a canola?" I beg. "It's some kind of oil developed by the Canadians." she spits out and with incredulous shock, I mock her. She can see that I've had to cross my legs in my stance a bit. I still think she's out of her mind and making this up. Who would know that? And why? And surely they don't call it Can-ola because it's Canadian Oil. Really?

"Oh, it gets better, she says and now she's delighted herself. “It's made from rapeseed oil, they couldn't just call it rape-oil now could they?" Too late, I've laughed into hitching gasps and water is streaming out of my eyes, pants-peeing is really a given here, but I manage to hold on by posturing. I can't breathe. Suzanne is only beginning to laugh but not at how hilarious she is or how clever - no she is starting to laugh because I am just about laid out on the floor, aisle 15 of the local WinCo thinking about rape-oil and the non-existence of the friendly canola plant. So, I bust out the I-Phone, because still, REALLY?

Google, and Wikipedia...wait for it...wait for it.
Canola is one of two cultivars of rapeseed or Brassica campestris (Brassica napus L. and B. campestris L.).[1] Their seeds are used to produce edible oil that is fit for human consumption because it has lower levels of erucic acid than traditional rapeseed oils and to produce livestock feed because it has reduced levels of the toxin glucosinolates.[2] Canola was originally naturally bred from rapeseed in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson in the early 1970s,[3][4] but it has a very different nutritional profile in addition to much less erucic acid.[5] The name "canola" was derived from "Canadian oil, low acid" in 1978.[6][7] A product known as LEAR (for low erucic acid rapeseed) derived from cross-breeding of multiple lines of Brassica juncea is also referred to as canola oil and is considered safe for consumption.[8]

From this day forward and forever more, Canola will no longer grace my grocery list, no indeed, it will only be called, Canadian oil, low acid. Hey, I need some Canadian Oil, Low Acid for my stir fry. Or even better, let’s stroll into Albertson’s and ask what aisle is the rape-oil on.

How did Suzanne know that? Why does she know that? How in the hell did she remember that? That's why we love her because there is room for that in her precious mind and she seems able to dish it up (or spoon feed me) when it is most important that I laugh on a Tuesday night at the grocery.

Congratulations Nicole Dell You've Just Won...

2009-11-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Nico,
Thank you for being THE VERY FIRST FOLLOWER OF MY BLOG!! YOU ROCK!

And congratulations, with your membership you will receive one complimentary dollop of hair gel, odor-eating shoe liners, a plastic (including the Biphenol PolyCarcinogens) water bottle with a poorly written cliche on it, some world class stainless steel bobby pins and my love and adoration for as long as you live.

Hurry, don't delay, these gifts are YOURS today, just for signing up. They also happen to be readily available at my home which explains a lot.

Really, thank you for signing up. I shall happily ridicule Suzanne who will now be #2. Which is better than going #2. Well, perhaps.

Now for a mind-bending discussion on Canola Oil...
Love,
April

Burnt Pumpkin Seeds & Cabernet

2009-10-26T21:49:00.000-07:00

To be clear, scorched pumpkin seeds and copious amounts of Cabernet do not constitute a well balanced meal. Also, just so you're sure, neither of these items inhabit the confines of my new diet. Now I have lost 12 pounds in about 4 week despite my best efforts to replace three of the four food groups with something that comes out of a corked bottle. But, everything I consume (cab aside) comes from little foil pouches. It starts out powdered and things that would normally be hearty and perfect for the cooling fall weather have been, well, pulverized. They are easily reconstituted by a mere minute in an 850 watt microwave and although I am sure that the grainy little beige chunks are meant to be chicken (for all I know it was chicken of some kind at one point) but taste rather like unsalted cardboard.

Now don't get me wrong, as far as diets go, this has been the most successful and manageable one I've ever tried. My weight loss success is unprecedented and I haven't felt deprived - except for the fruit of the vine.

What is it about that soft pop of an evacuated cork that makes my spine tingle? Even after I've had a few too many, well several too many, truth be told, I can smell that toasted oak or black cherry or rotten leaves and dried socks or whatever and my palate literally quivers. Even as I squeeze one eye shut to keep Desperate Housewives (don't judge me) on one screen, I fill the glass. I remind myself later I will surely regret this. Later I will wish that I could breathe through both nostrils and that my mouth didn't have that weird sanded feeling. I will chastise myself and impose sturdy recriminations for my wanton lack of self-control.

Then comes the bewitching hour, say sometime between 5:30 and the next day, where my defenses are low, my willpower intimidated by bigger emotional bullies, my day sucked, my job is stressful, the perpetual recounting of the Simpsons dialogue by my 12 year old is driving me crazy, I'd rather drink red wine than eat pulpy pudding. This nuisance of a dialogue continues until the clatter in my brain either gives up and quietly pours the remnants of last night's bottle or I defy my craving and beat it back into it's black hole.

See, truthfully, the thrill of "getting into those skinny jeans" eludes me. I am more in favor of sexy shoes although my arthritic ankles mock me in anything over 2 1/2 inches. Sexy shoes can make your butt look smaller, it's a proven fact. Sure, I'd like the smaller pants - they take less room in the washer, but clothes are clothes and while I may don a smaller waist line, there will never be a reversal in the lowering of "the girls".

My breasts currently can be compared to "grapefruits in tube socks" and losing weight might shift them to lemons, but the infrastructure remains the same, they will hang down. They might perk up a bit but I have no delusion about their shape and the effect age, gravity and weight loss will have on them. I don't care about skinny jeans, I want to wear a cute tank top with no bra! Or be gingerly supported by a pretty cami under something sheer and billowing and not XL. How about a bathing suit that doesn't have be held together with carabiners after the flimsy plastic latch gives way under the pressure? (true story). So see, the pursuit is convoluted and lacks any of the instant gratification of pulling that cork out of the next bottle.

Well, that's enough of that. Back to the cab. I recently had the privilege of touring Columbia Valley, Washington wine country with my dear friends, one of which manages a vineyard in Easter Washington. We yellow school bussed it around several tasting rooms. I was given instruction on identifying "corked" wine and watched in awe as my friend, Kent, dumped out a full glass because it was corked. Really? I would never have thought of that. But now that I have a more discerning palate, I might be tempted to do so, as long as there is a back up bottle. I also learned the name of some chemical that creates the flavor of green pepper in some wines. I know that their rich, complex flavor is really an amazing balancing act of grape, sugars, the miracle of fermentation, the right barrel and very astute vintners (someone check me, is that what the wine maker or the grape grower is called?). And the glass does make a difference, the shape of the globe serves more than to grace a table with regality, but becomes a fragrance diffuser which adds to the overall experience. They offer classes on this stuff so that you can hone your palate to recognize the good from the bad. I will love the homework!

So, ode to the goblet or carafe or box even, you are sorely missed on my "health" journey. I ferreted away my bounty from the wine trip, wrote the dates and places I purchased them on each bottle with silver Sharpie. I will wait for the right dinner party, the right pity party, the right I just really want a glass of wine party and will rejoice in the grape, the amazing friends and maybe even skinny jeans.

Using the blender...

2009-10-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

Chinchilla aside. Here is excellent advice. When using the blender, PUT THE LID ON BEFORE PRESSING "MIX" that is unless you really want to wear a spray of roasted tomatillos.

More on Barking LIzards

2009-09-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

As expected, if you Google "Barking Lizards" you wind up with a plethora of web pages, my favorite being a list of Limerick slang phrases and their Dublin equivalents. Go there and read it's funny.

The Surrealists hotline...

2009-09-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

I started out with the title, Musings and Meanderings which I thought was quite clever until I Googled (just when did that become a verb?) it and found a bazillion web things with that phrase. So, check this out, I quoted from a long ago used answering machine message in which I ramble off a series of non-sensical and totally unrelated words and inform callers they've reached the "Surrealists Hotline". The script of this left several friends doubled over in laughter, even pants-peeing, and I used it for a long time, except of course when I was looking for a job. Someplace in my files, I have the original yellow note paper with the whole thing and I will replicate it here for someone's (or no ones's) amusement.

The point was, I wanted a title that was unique on my new blog, which is my favorite new thing. The baffling part for me is that I don't know how to Google my blog. How does one find me on the internet. I tried putting in "chinchilla blender" and oddly the search returned roughly 1,101,000 items for this. I looked through several pages but can't believe there are that many websites or blogs or even topics that entertain both chinchillas and blenders under the same heading. Nonetheless, putting in any combinations of the compenents that make up my blogspot title, name, heading, whatever, produced the annoying "no pages match whatever you typed in up there. Did you mean, april finally waits or april ferrets cats or april formally loses it? NO, dammit, I meant, APRIL FINALLY WRITES, it's my blog. This, I discover is not original either. I still contend that you will be hard pressed to beat slack worms or chinchilla blender. Barking lizard is probably a no brainer. I'm going to google it now and get back to you, faithful reader. And I assume there is only one of you right?

What I know about Mortgages aka DEATH PLEDGE

2009-09-15T11:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, I can't stand it anymore, I have to write about the rise and fall of the Subprime Mortgage Empire, of which I was an unwilling foot soldier for several years.

I underwrote loans, lots of them, sensible of course in the beginning. For some reason the bank thought it prudent that your mortgage payment only be 36% of your income and that you should prove you earned income and could repay your loan. Greed is a funny thing. I remember when two goons from Express Funding showed up in my small mortgage broker's office in 1993 and proudly proclaimed that they would make loans to people with "not so perfect" credit. Really?

Well, we simply didn't have any clients like that, how shameful. Besides, who would pay 10.95% for a mortgage loan when prime was 8.25%. I know that subprime lending had sprouted after the fall of the savings and loan business. If you're really interested in that drivel, Google it, I have better stories to tell.

The mortgage business, at least my slice of it, seemed to be plagued with drama, incest and such a penchant for unscrupulousness that I began to think all the world behaved that way. Oh and did I mention rampant narcissism, reckless endangerment of the dollar and promiscuity?

To be fair, I may have slept with another mortgage professional at one point but I knew deep down if one of them wanted to start a family, I was out - I never saw the mortgage business as a viable future - and, I was right. Dang it.

I worked for the largest financial institution in the world and thought, great, I'll have job security. Nope. While the institution remains, the paltry manufactured home financing business they scooped up during an acquisition is long gone. We were told that they were going to reinvent sub prime lending. The purchased a multi-million dollar proprietary computer program (which failed as had others - more on this later) and sent legions of sales people out to conquer the dreaded question, "What's your niche." That loosely translates into what can your company do for me that the other five companies that came in here earlier today can't do?" This nefarious question made my skin crawl. It didn't matter, what left our mouths was a brief parroting of "We have stated income for wage earners, 90% LTV down to a 580 credit score and imminent default programs" or something like that. I'd like to think that mortgage brokers were loyal but you could bust your ass for two weeks pushing their ugliest file and when you called to find out where to send closing docs, you'd discover that some account executive with bigger boobs and a .25% better rate scooped it up and funded it while you were screaming at the document department to get your closing package out asap or else!

More on this later

It really took me this long?

2009-09-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Having been intimidated and threatened by the mere mention of the word "blog" for about the last five years, I finally set one up. Seriously? It was that easy? I thought "blogging" was some mysterious internet mechanism reserved for the precious few tech heads who understood cobalt basic or quantum physics or something. I have my own domain name which remains a fetal website, just a name with a webpage that says something like, "THIS SITE MAY BE FOR SALE BECAUSE THE MORON WHO PAYS $115 A YEAR FOR IT WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO SET UP A WEBSITE TO SAVE HER LIFE." This is interesting because my former spouse amongst others are web designers who actually know what HTML stands for. All I know about HTML is that if I don't read my emails in that, they're boring and the animated emoticons are just meaningless puncutation marks.

So I created a blog, just like that. I labored over choosing a background template, what if I don't like the colors? What will people think? This is just silly, really. Now I'm perplexed. After decades of scribing the most impressive narratives about my world, I sit here, exposed, anyone in the world might read this (wouldn't that be cool?) and I'm suffering a creative stall.

Good enough for now. Welcome to my world, I have lots to say, with any luck it will be interesting and entertaining. At the very least, I can finally tell Suzanne that I published - even if it's only my own blog, I'm in print now dear and there may be an available audience.