People are strange, and my celebrity twin

About a week ago I learned something in a crowded room full of (mostly) strangers. People tended to be drawn to those who looked or seemed most like themselves. The few blondes in the room always sat together. The guys in plaid with baseball caps stopped talking whenever a man wearing a tie sat near them, or a female. Leather jacket people (unfortunately not the biker kind) had their own little group, and so on. I mostly sat next to Pat since I knew him, and there wasn’t time for idle chatter so it worked out. Talking to Pat is like talking to a rock.


He just can't do it.

When we took breaks the strange behavior continued as people congregated in the hallway, lounge and outside. For the most part people were polite. No one I spoke to ever snubbed me, except for one of the blondes. It was like I was invisible. In that moment I felt… so… black. Damn cracker.

Now here is the list of brave people who initiated conversation with me:

· The only Native American woman there, who sat next to me and sought me out on breaks. I was the only one she talked to and her bff that week. I’ll just say I know more about her family than I ever will about Pat’s. I don’t think he even has one.

· A red headed woman who thought I was funny, but then again, it could’ve been gas. You never know.

· When I was a few minutes late one morning a really spiffy and happy man said, “Hi! There’s an empty seat right here. Sit.”

Damn, I didn’t get his name or number.

· Pat said, “How about Perkins?” and “Let’s go to KFC,” and so on. He was definitely the bravest.

I’m a tough one to figure out thanks to my dark hair and peachy/pasty skin. Whenever someone meets me for the first time and tries to label me or guess my ethnicity they are usually wrong. The upside is being able to blend in just about anywhere. The downside is… Well, there really is no downside. When they are wrong I find it amusing. One time I’ll never forget was back when I was married and living in my husband’s home town. I’d just started making chicken-fried steak (which is the only thing I can cook well) and we were almost out of cooking oil so my husband went to the store. He returned with an old friend he had seen walking along the road carrying a 12 pack. I hadn’t even met this guy yet but here he was, at our dining room table waiting for dinner and drowning himself in his beer. They called me out of the kitchen. Right after we were introduced he blurted out, “You look like a Jew!”

I smiled and said nothing.

He turned to my husband. “She’s not Jewish?”

My husband just smiled and shook his head. Then his friend turned back to me, “You really look like you’re from Israel or sumthin’!”

To this day I’m still not sure if he was racist, ignorant or just thought I looked like Anne Frank.


Anne


Me

She's definitely my celebrity twin. Now if anyone needs me I’ll be hiding out in a house full of white kids.

Is it summer yet?

I awoke this morning to my 6-yr-old daughter waving a little package of Scooby fruit snacks in my face. She said, “Mommy, this is the last one. Can I have it?”

Damn, those are some good fruit snacks. Really sugary, but they sure are packed full of flavor. I liked the green ones best.

What was even more surprising than their yumminess and my daughter's graciousness was seeing the sun shining brightly through the curtains. Yes, the sun is back. Finally. It’s been too long. Days and weeks of nothing but clouds and dark skies. So I peeked outside and now the sky looks like this…



And everything is green. It's lovely. So today when I drop my “ride” off at the shop to get it all spruced up for our vacation (it has to be at least drivable) I’ll walk home with the sun shining down on me. This is good. Up until I saw the forecast last night I was expecting rain and hail like we had just a few days ago. I’m much too delicate to get caught in a cloudburst. Well, not really. But my daughters are. And they’re stuck with me today, so it helps that the weather is cooperating. It’s kind of windy out there but that’s alright. It’s supposed to get up to 75 degrees F. I’d take 70 at this point. It’s been too cold for too long. I’m hoping eventually I won’t have to run the furnace at night just to stay warm. Is it summer yet? Could it be? We’re usually a toasty 80 or 90 degrees by now. I can’t remember the last time it snowed in the mountains during June. I’m glad I'm not in the higher elevations right now. Ha ha, those suckers. I hope they have satellite dishes or something to help pass the time during road closures. Arts and crafts, perhaps? They probably just drink a lot of microbrew in their cabins and have sex all day long, to the romantic sounds of Hank Williams.




So anyway, it’s been really cold here, especially at night and my furnace runs on heating oil. When we first moved in this place it was cheaper than our natural gas bill had been, and way cheaper than electric heat. But the cost has been mirroring the gas prices and increasing the same, so when I filled up the tank the last time it was nearly $4/gal. Woah. Normally I’d be set until January of 2009. But I’ve already burned through ¼ of the tank, so now I might make it to December. “Guess what kids? You get heat for Christmas! That’s right, you get a warm house! Isn’t that awesome?”

Is it too late to impeach Bush? I think we’ve got about what, seven months left before he leaves office? Hmm. Don’t tell that to Dennis Kucinich. He might be on to something. Wouldn’t want to break his spirit or anything.

How about that Al Gore? I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. Do you see it too? It’s good to be Independent.

I had a few different blogs going on in my head yesterday at work, then I came home to do more work, and the next thing I knew I was on the couch falling asleep with the TV on. Shhhh, don’t tell Al Gore. I’m really trying to be green. Is this a good look for me?



I think the ruffled puffy blouse is so gay. Country girls wear plaid.

The Comeupance Committee

Thanks for stopping by. Here is something I originally wrote last fall.


The fact that the word comeupance is in the dictionary literally boggles my mind. What a strange word. On the odd occasion I will hear it on TV. As an American it just seems so foreign, and way too classy for a simple country girl like me to ever use. But I‘m going to try, and just dive right into it for the sake of learning a new word.

Comeupance. It's a noun which means "an outcome (good or bad) that is well deserved."

This raises a question. Who decides if an outcome is well deserved? Is there a Comeupance Committee somewhere we should know about? If there is, I want the number. There are times when it could be helpful to consult with a trained professional regarding the use of comeupance.

One night not too long ago I was out driving alone on a highway and had quite the scare. It began when I started up a large hill and had to turn down my headlights because a big tractor-trailer was just starting down the hill in the opposite lane. Just a few seconds later, I saw a giant doe heading straight for my windshield on the driver's side!

Gasp! A doe. A deer. A suicidal female deer.

She came up so fast, I didn't even have time to think. Gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands, I quickly turned to the right and then back to the left. I missed her by only a split second. I kind of saw her face, but it was a blur since I was so busy… ya know… trying not to die and all. In that brief moment I think I heard her cry out, "Buck is a cheating bastard!"

My life didn't pass before me. Now I know for certain that whole idea is just a Hollywood hoax. It did take me a few minutes to calm down. I continued on, but slowed down to 60 mph with my left hand on the wheel and my right hand on my chest. I was breathing so hard I could feel my lungs. When things like this happen, you don't know how you're going to react in the moment of truth. Lucky for me, my Under Roos stayed dry. I was driving my old and very heavy GMC Suburban (hey, it's paid for), which is long enough to support it's height and not like those popular SUVs that are box-shaped and feather-light. Is that maybe why I didn't roll over and die just like that movie The Weather Man?

I'm not ready for a funeral yet.

I haven't got any thing to wear! What would they put on me? I'd like a fancy casket so I’d need something that doesn't make me look like trailer trash arriving at a ball. I have to look my best when I go to that fancy ballroom in the ground.

On second thought, scratch the fancy casket. All a country girl needs is a plain wooden box. No, a plaid wooden box. Yes, that’s much more appropriate.

Would you say, after getting the crap scared out of me in a life/death situation, that I got my comeupance? Are you on the committee?