Grapes

This morning, the main host of the morning show  I tune in to was talking about his habit of stealing grapes from the produce section.  He recently had a specific situation where he popped 2 grapes in his mouth,  then spotted another shopper giving him a disapproving look.  Annoyed by this disapproving look, he ate 3 more grapes (a gesture of "so there!").  The conversation topic then became, "Is that STEALING??"  The show hosts were about evenly divided on this topic, and same with the listeners who called in.  One of the dumbest arguments, that I cannot believe was so popular was "NO! EVERYBODY does that!!" 

OK, well, eating something you're not going to pay for is classified as stealing as per the damn definition of stealing. A crime is not rendered a non-crime on the grounds of it being commonplace. And here's why  the funny little morning show banter reemerged in my head: it occurred to me: cheating on your spouse is becoming like eating grapes in the grocery store. Affairs aren't surprising people anymore. They seem to have morphed into just one of the standard potholes in the marital road, whereas they used to be a big fuckin' deal.  I was sitting at lunch, with my two work besties--W. , who grew up with infidelity in her parents' marriage, and R, whose 2nd marriage broke up due to her ex running off with another woman. So, I knew they would both have some firsthand insight to offer when I was telling them how my sister called me up sobbing because she discovered today my brother-in-law has been having an affair for over a year..
Oh yeah.  I had a whopper of an entry in the "You Learn Something New Everyday" file for 10/25/2012.

I am absolutely surprised and simultaneously thinking I shouldn't be surprised at all. I've known for a long time that Greg is selfish,  that he "phones it in" as a father, that my sister does all the compromising in that relationship.  He has this way of "doing his own thing" which is not necessarily a bad thing, in the right measure, but he does his own thing  by default...and CONSTANTLY.  All these things make for an excellent cheater, don't they??   And yet, I never expected it from him. It's not that I took him to be too morally upright for such things...noooo, never that.  I actually thought him TOO wrapped up in himself to connect with another woman.  I thought him passionless, and not creative enough for intrigue. I thought he was a dull slob and who the hell else would have him?  And I thought he listened and believed it when we'd gossiped of others' infidelities and my sister insisted she'd kill or castrate him if ever he cheated.

As of our last texts of around 8pm,  she had not killed or castrated him. She did confront him, but  he is not owning up to it.   She can't tell him that his sister told her about it (the sister, even though she is DISGUSTED with Greg, does not want to be excommunicated) so she had confronted him with some scrap of circumstantial evidence and he's denying everything. And it's my niece's 8th birthday and they went out for a nice family dinner at The Weathervane.  She texted me that they're make-believing all is OK and she feels sick.  And I replied: I don't know how u r holding back from ripping the oars off the wall & bludgeoning the fucker.

Well, having lunch with her tomorrow. I have no idea what to say to her.  Talking to her on the phone today, I feel like I kept parrotting the same dumb phrases--there was "I can't believe that selfish, thoughtless pig asshole"  and the supremely  unhelpful "Holy Shit, whaddareyougonnaDO?"  But I did leave her a nice voicemail...it was basically "Tell me what I can do to help.  I love you."  I think if I just keep telling her that....

Yet Another Hodge Podge

Whenever I get gravely blogstipated it seems I always crank out a list of some sort.  I guess I'm not inspired enough on any one topic, so if I throw up a few disjointed bulletpoints I think it might suffice.  It's better than nothin' anyway? Si? No?

1. I just "LIKED" Vincent Price on Facebook and was astounded, appalled and surprised that I had not already done so.  I'm am pretty damned conscientious about FB liking things (in regards to art, pop culture, businesses, products etc...)that I like IRL.  I kinda get this little pang of gratification that--I dunno- I suppose comes from some sense of "making it official".   I also think if FBI profilers need to study me one day, I want them to have lots of fodder for study. Lots and lots of paradoxical, confounding fodder.

2. Looking up and liking VPrice  called to mind my "Interchangable Celebs" roster.  Well, they're not ALL interchangable, but I think some sure are.  They're all inextricably linked (sometimes inexplicably linked) in my mind.  Like Vincent Price acts like a trigger that invariably makes me think of Jack Palance (and vice versa...but let the record show that I don't love Palance near as much as I do Price) Here is a  wee sub-list:
1. Rachel Bilson & Mila Kunis
2. Jack Palance & Vincent Price
3. Bill Paxton & Bill Pullman (is this duo not on EVERYONE'S list?)
4. Paul Giamatti & Philip Seymour Hoffman

The list is actually much longer but now that I'm focusing on the list, writing about it, my mind is going blank.  Feck.

3. A few months back, there was a Team Building Meeting (replete with overpaid consultants!) for our managers.  An hour or so after this meeting wrapped, I was walking through the conference room it was held in and I saw that they had some  bullet points still posted up on the wall (have you seen those flip charts that have adhesive backing that render the pages into like giant Post-Its?  That's what they used in this meeting)  I figured that page was headed for the trash, so I proceeded to deface it (of course!)
WELL...imagine my surprise when I went into my boss's office to do her a favor last week, and I found that posted on her wall. I  snapped a few pics with my cell  (ever-so-slyly, mind you.  She was nowhere around, but the office door was wide open) . 

 

So you can't really see where I defaced it in the top pic, but you can see in the bottom one my contribution: "with your spelling". OK, so it's not like I spray-painted my gang tag on there or scribbled penises on there,but it was still done with a spirit of impudence. Snarky impudence.  I realize that those notes were jotted up there during a rapid fire brainstorming orgy, but that's no excuse.  If I'd seen that someone had, apres faux pas, tried to wedge the omitted C in there with one o' those ^ dealies, I woulda for sure let it slide.  But we PAY those jackalopes to intruct our management...so I'm less than thrilled that they are propagating the shoddy spelling skills that are already epidemical with that lot.

 

I wonder if my boss realizes I did that?  Knowing her, she probably didn't even notice it..

 

 

4. Speaking of workplace wall postings,  I have the job of maintaining the office "Kudos Board".  This is a cork board repository for all the good feedback for our staffers (usually stuff reported through email, sometimes cards sent in to us). I had, recently, a TOTALLY BRILL. notion that would cut down on gratuitous praise. I could makeover the "Kudos Board" into a "HaiKUDOS Board" and make it mandatory for all commendations submitted to be in the form of a Haiku poem. Of course, there's a definite conflict of interest issue with me doing my own Haikudo, but just for the sake of y'all having an example---

Scurry, office wench

you clerical gun for hire.

Give that girl a raise!

Hotties Du Jour, Hotties of Yore

 

I don't read Cosmo, but I am glad that the publication keeps a-chug, chug, chuggin' along, for it gives me one of my favorite annual customs.  I quite enjoy hopping on the 'zine's website and poring over the annual BACHELOR OF THE YEAR CANDIDATES. Every year (if I happen to remember--or see somewhere--that it's Cosmo Bachelor voting time) I have an intense, extended ogle,  and the rest of the year I am completely unshallow and judge absolutely everybody on the content of their character.  I swear.

So, get over there & rock the vote...it is absolutely pointless, except perhaps it might get you in a voting mood and get you all sortsa jazzed for voting this November.  I looked at all 50 contenders (all 50 tributes.. ha haa) and was gonna jot down a top 5 but I just could NOT whittle my list down to 5. It's a FIIIINE crop this year.  I had to do a top 10.  And the Top 10 is (in reverse order, to try and percolate a modicum of suspense here) (thumbnails = links--so what a tricky trick I've mastered!!)

#10 North Carolina
 

#9 Oklahoma

#8 Nevada
 

#7 Colorado
 

#6 New Hampshire


 

                                                                                            

                                                                                                             #5 Kansas


 





                       

                      #4 Wisconsin




 




                                                                                         

                                                                                                             #3 Rhode Island

#2 Ohio

 

 

#1 New York



A few notes: Although I read every single interview, I did not take them into consideration at all.  If  I were factoring in interview answers, my #1 might not have even cracked the top 10.  He seems like he has douchebag potential.  ALSO, Ohio was a very, verrry close second.  Like, in a way I'm most smitten with him (and yes, I think it IS the hipster Richie Cunningham styling that gets me) but I tried to judge empirically, and singling out the top physical specimen in an empirical fashion, I'd have to award the honors to NY. He is quite gorg. 

I have not yet voted.  I'm curious to see who'll win.  If it's like....Maine...I'll know the contest is rigged as shit.

 

I've mentioned before (fairly recently, in fact) my habit of checking Wikipedia for historical anniversaries.  A couple of weeks ago --on Sept.13, to be precise--I zeroed in on this in my list of historical happenin's..

 

Maybe the case of Phineas Gage stuck in my head (haahaa...see what I did there?) so resolutely because it was one of my fellow Vermonters making a name for himself. . . albeit not in the most clever of ways. But I do think  Gage was a landmark case.  I know we devoted a whole lecture to him in my college Psych 101 class.  Also, you don't make the opening credits to Ripley's Believe it or Not if your tale is obscure and unimportant.  Yep, that's Gage's pike-punctured skull floating at ya right at the start of the intro.  Actually, that image of his skull was all I'd ever seen of P-Gage.  Consequently, I was ever so surprised to find that when I clicked on the Wiki write up to review the details of the event, it featured *two* photos of the man.   It seems I  had never encountered them before because they are both quite recent finds.  The daguerreotype below was authenticated in 2009

 

 

The other portrait (here) was found in 2010.

 

So yeah, I realize, it's odd for me to find foxy a dude dead for 150+ years now.  But I'll have you know that it's not EXTREMELY ODD...my proof of that being that there are at least 2 Tumblrs devoted to just that topic.  So I had to up the oddity quotient by crushing on the ORIGINAL TBI case, cyclops, with --I'd imagine-- a misshapen skull (his hair does cover it admirably though, no?)