No Celery Please

I am not sure what this is.  But it’s what came out when I went to write my piece for Wordsmiths Unlimited.  Is it  poem?  Uh, not quite, but sorta.  Is it a story?  Uh, not quite, but sorta.

Either way, it is what it is… it’s under 500 words, and that’s what counts!

What Was

—————–

Warriors play in the ruins of my town, 
Them with thier horses and clubs.

We had cars. 
We had electricity. 
We had food in cellophane wrappers.

Then the rains came.
Then the lightning.
Then the floods.
Then the plague.

God?

I do not know.

But now we have no cars.
Now we have no electricity.
Now we have no food.

Warriors play in the ruins of my town,
Them who were prepared for this.

Did we laugh before? At those who said the end was near?

Do we laugh now? With the boots on our necks of those who were prepared?

Warriors play in the ruins of my town.
They are the only ones who laugh now.

My new thing is that I would like to be more “outdoorsy”.

I started with the idea of having a vegetable garden.  But… Our yard is totally not in any kind of configuration that would allow that sort of thing.  We have a lot of shade, and some swampy areas, and, also, the whole drought thing to consider.  And, let’s face it, everything I eat comes out of a Lean Cuisine box, and what the heck am I gonna do with a bunch of fresh vegetables if I never cook?

So that idea is kind of a bad one (might put a large pot on the deck and grow some strawberries or something… plant an apple tree?).

So from there I went to the idea of maybe getting the hang of camping, which I never have done, mostly because the ground, well, it’s hard. But surely that’s something I ought to be able to deal with for the pleasure of sleeping out in the woods – under the stars and all that sort of thing?  Right?

We used to do a lot of hiking, but that’s a problem now because the Boo (our doggie) is getting up there in years and a 12 to 15 mile hike is, I think, beyond her.  But the idea of going for a hike with no Boo is just so sad, so we go on much shorter hikes, closer to home, which, you know, just isn’t the same as heading out to the mountains and in all that nature and stuff.

Last year I was all about the bike riding.  But, I never could convince the SB to join me.  He got a bike and everything, but declared that he didn’t like riding any more.  Riding a bike for long distances on your own, no matter how many times I tried to tell myself how much fun I was having, just isn’t all that enjoyable.  Add to that the fact that if I had gone further with it and started to do all day rides of 60 miles or so that I would then be missing one of the two days per week I can actually hang out with my husband, and I suppose the whole biking thing is probably over…

Spring is coming and I am getting restless.  I feel the need to get out and do things.  I just can figure out what things to do.

I kind of like to think I am a bitch.  Then things like this come along and I have to face the facts… I’m really not all that evil. 

You Are 34% Evil

A bit of evil lurks in your heart, but you hide it well.In some ways, you are the most dangerous kind of evil.

Phew.  that was quite the trip.

I don’t sleep too well in hotels.  Add to that… I had a sore throat all week (conveniently only at night, while I was trying to sleep).  Also, it was Coooold.

 So, I was exhausted, but it was still cool to be in NYC.

My boss told me to come up for three days, so I was supposed to be home tonight at 10.

Then, all the meetings and stuff ended up being yesterday and I had NO REASON to still be in New York.  He told me to “enjoy the city”.

 I know he was trying to do a very nice thing with that, and I appreciate it, because my boss is a sweetie, but I sure would have rather gone home Thursday night had I but known.

So this morning, I did get out and walk around Midtown, which is always fun.  But it was 20* outside, and I just couldn’t take it.  So after two hours, I decided to just say to hell with it, head to the airport and hope I could catch an eariler flight and not just get stuck at the airport for 7 hours.

Turns out, there was a flight that was boarding just as I got through security.  So, bing bang boom, I was on my way home and got home at 2 instead of 10.  Woo Hoo!

One thing I DID do this morning was stop at the Stage Deli and get me and the SB each a Knish (no bacon, tho, Tiff).  I packed them (with some worry – I was afraid the TSA might consider mashed potatoes liquid – but it went through security fine) and the SB and I had New York Knish for lunch here in Charlotte – love it!

So – no monsters attacked while I was in the city.  So it was a good trip, and good meetings.  But goodness, I am always sooooooo glad to be home.

So this evening, I leave for a business trip to NYC for the rest of the week.

I am sincerely hoping that while I am there, the city is not attacked by giant monsters from space that knock over buildings, eat people, and seem for some odd reason to sweat weird space-spiders when they become overheated from the smashing and explosions.

Rest assured, if the city isoverrun with giant space monsters while I am there, I will document the whole thing in pictorial form on my camera phone.

Mind you, I am too cheap to spend the $0.25 per picture to send the pictures off my phone and to a site where they could actually be viewed, so the pictures will have to be recovered by the government from the rubble of the city where I drop my phone as I rush out of the city in a panic not stopping to consider where any of my co-workers might be at the time or whether there might be anything I could do to help them to safety (because seriously, I would be booking for the nearest exit with no thought for anyone but myself – unless there was a crying toddler in the street or something, because, come on, I’m not completelyheartless, even though I know that stopping and trying to save a kid is an almost CERTAIN way to end up dead when the city is being smashed by alien monsters. Still, sometimes being connected with an adorable moppet will get you on a chopper out of the city that does NOT explode of crash or whatnot)

I promise not to record any creepy voice messages, though.

Cloverfield.

Oh My God.

Brilliant!  Genius!  Fabulous!  Sooooooooo Good!

I Loved It!

Also, I was practically green with nausea by the end.  Totally worth it!

This movie was soo0 much better than I expected it to be, and here’s why…  It was like I was ACTUALLY EXPERIENCING the events.  With the home-movie quality of it… and the other characters talking to the guy holding the camera, it was a totally immersive story.

And the way they did it was great.  It’s so much like it would be if this happened in real life.  No one would know what the hell was going on.  Things would be exploding, people would be screaming, trying to get out of the city, or find their loved ones, or whatever.

Soldiers and cops and civilians all around. 

I LOVED that we only saw what was happening through the eyes of the characters we were with… no overviews… no seeing what the generals or president was doing.. just people on their own trying to survive what I thought was one of the best lines in the whole film “a terrible thing” (you have to get it in context).

I LOVED that we never really found out the what or why or how, there were no scientific explanations… just these people going through this stuff… It is exactly how I would imagine it would be if a giant monster actually attacked Manhattan.

I don’t want to give away the end, but I loved that too.

The critics were criticizing the fact that there’s no big explanation, but I think that the not ever really knowing is what made it so realistic… in the event of a real attack, would I have any idea what was going on?  No.  Would I have the advantage of scientists explaining to me what the monster was or where it came from?  No.  I would just be running my ass as quickly out of the city as I could, by golly.

Besides, the very beginning of the film (and this is not giving anything away) shows us that the humans won in the end and were able to get back in the city, because the very first frame shows that the video was “found” by the government – so obviously the monster was eventually defeated… is there anything else we need to know?  No – I think it’s just enough.

 Now – the big caveat… The hand-held-ness totally made me nauseous.  The SB got through the movie just fine, but I am more sensitive to these things (I CANNOT watch an IMAX, for example, they always make me sick).  The shaking and the constant refocusing took their toll after a while.  I made it through about 45 minutes.  Then, I had to cover my eyes.  For about the next twenty minutes, I only looked at the screen when it sounded like something really good was going on.  After about 20 minutes of not looking, I was able to watch the last ten minutes or so without too much trouble… but it was at least 20 minutes after we left the theater before I felt back to normal.  SO.. if you are sensitive to camera work like that, prepare for some punishment in this case.  But I would still recommend going, because…  as I said.. GENIUS!

I am going to go see Cloverfield this weekend.

From what I hear.  It is going to BOTH suck AND blow!

I don’t care.  I am going to see it anyway.

Monsters!

AND…

New York Porn!

(which is what the SB and I call any movie or TV show with gratuitous NYC scenery that allows us to go… “We’ve been there!” and get all excited and drool about the next time we’ll get to take a trip to NYC)

Why, my goodness, yes.

I remember the great winter storm of ought-eight.

It was a sight to behold! Snow lying so thick on the ground, by golly, you could actually see the stuff.

Schools closed! Businesses emptied! Why the only trade going on in town was a brisk business in milk and toilet paper at the general store.

The weather men were all a-twitter with the news that, ok, yes, it was just raining now, but BY GUM there had been WINTERY MIX coming down.  Can’t you just picture it?

No, they don’t make weather like that anymore.

We have an employee morale team here at work.  It’s responsible for stuff like charity events (walks, etc), planning the summer picnic and whatnot.

 They didn’t have anyone to chair the thing this year.  So I said I would do it.

 I am such a sucker!

Oh well, it’s just a year, then it will get foisted off onto some other unsuspecting fool.

My niece called me to tell me that my “myspace” account had been hacked.

 D’oh!

I got phished – dummy! I clicked on a link on my niece’s page that said someone had posted soemthing bad about her.  Being the good aunt, I clicked on it to make sure no one was actually bad-mouthing my niece. So – redirect, ask for login… they got me, I admit it. I should have known, but I wasn’t paying attention.

So someone had logged into my account and posted a bunch of dirty “bulletins”. MySpace locked the account after about 10 of them. I just had to go in, change my password and delete the bulletins.

BUT!   With these little geniuses having my email address and MySpace password, I thought it would be safer to change all my online passwords (because, yeah, I am unsafe and use the same thing for most things)

So I had to spend 30 minutes going to all my accounts and changing the password.  At least I didn’t use all the same one this time.  It’s just going to be a bitch to remember them.

The worst part?   I don’t even use stupid MySpace. I only have a page because I was bored one day and it was something to do. Of course, if I did use it more, I might be aware of the phishes going around and not fall for them.  Ah well, new rule – no clicking links on MySpace.  I am too old to belong there anyway.

Gah!