Terri Garr and I

Teri Garr and I

You know that saying about meeting your heros, or in this case sheros, that you may be dissappointed? Teri Garr is probably one of the nicest people you'd ever meet in your life. I was waiting back stage for her arrival and was on pins and needles, which in the case of having MS, usual MO.
When she came in, she moves slower now and I sensed pain. But what a smile. She was at the National MS Covention for the Greater Delaware Valley earlier, so I know I would have wanted a nap at that point.
She came in with her assistant and had a seat. I told her I was a Sister in Arms and taking the same med that she takes, Rebif®. She was wearing a lovely oatmeal wool sweater, which was not the thing to wear that day. It was unseasonably warm, she commented that it felt like we were baking cookies back there. (folks with MS don't do heat well)
When she was asked what she wanted to do, she was a little surprised but she would wing it, talk about the book, MS, take Q&A from the crowd.

So out I go to the podium, which was on the opposite side of the stage, thinking about that WB frog tap dancing across. People started clapping and I took my place. I took my time, cause get me going and it's a blur. After she came out, I went backstage and out the side doors and took my seat up front next to the President of our library. Ms.Garr just sort of starting talking about work, how the illness affected her, the people she worked with, her family. She was a delight.

The Q&A time is always a bit of a white knuckle thing, cause you can't screen the questions and alot of Young Frankenstein stuff gets brought up again and again. But she handled it with flair and her sense of humour. I never got the ditzy thing about her. Her sense of humour, to me, is ethereal.

"A Boy and His Cat"

Well tonight I'm sitting here waiting to do my intro for Teri Garr's talk. I'm not insanely nervous, I actually like talking before a crowd. I have my intro ready and await word while I play around in Photoshop and clean up email. What blog would be complete if it didn't have CAT PICTURES!!

Finally got around to getting the new cat in front of the camera.

The Boy and Salem

The Tightening of The Ring

So I'm back. What an odd feeling to have this ring tightened. It was a simple procedure, 7cc's of saline into the port and the sensation of having eaten a huge meal that you don't remember eating.

It's not uncomfortable, just odd.

Hedwig!
To calm down on the drive over, I made a cd with some of my glam favorites. I od'ed this weekend on Velvet Goldmine and Hedwig and The Angry Inch.


John Rhys Myers is Brian Slade aka Maxwell Demon in Velvet Goldmine

"Fork Over Those Durkee Onions, and No One gets Hurt!"

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I was enlisted to make the "String Bean" casserole. While my husband is still recovering at home from a botched surgery, to make life easier, he orders groceries on-line and has them delivered. I reminded him about "THE CASSEROLE".

"Hon, did you put the onions on the list?"
Him- "Oh no. I figured you could pick them up during the week."
Me- "Well, you ordered the soup and the beans, but why not the onions?"
Him - "mumblemumble"

With his super cunning logic at work, we're all in trouble.

I get to fight little old ladies at the Super market for these fricking ONIONS!

"You are what you eat"

What does "variety meat" actually mean?

One of my weekly joys is reading a column over at:
CreativePro
Gene Gable writes a column called Heavy Metal

Gable shares his collection of vintage graphics and printing equipment with the new "cyber" designer.
I always get a chuckle at the things he brings back to my memory.

This week's article "You Are What You Eat" calls up some of the most frightening images of food from the 50's and 60's.




Jello as a Weapon


Another great site to delve into all things ephemeral(?) is James Lileks.
Lileks has the Gallery of Regrettable food which is a panic as is the Old Ad Archive and countless other areas to peruse. The whole of the Jello area is too much. Scary, scary molds.

Tighten Up!

Nope, not the song by Archie Bell and The Drells.
Today I get to have my lap band adjusted. For those of you just joining our program, in September I had a LAP band installed.
What it does, essentially, is make the stomach smaller without actually cutting away the stomach.

Why did I do it? Part of me still feels that I've become a turn coat to my fellow fat folks. But with MS, Diabetes, and HBP, I wanted to be around for our son. It's a slower loss than the gastric bypass. And if something goes bad, it can be removed.

Look, I'm not interested in becoming a swimsuit model, I just want to be able to go near a beach without someone trying to put me back in the water.
It will be nice having more energy and more flexiblity. Look out Rockettes!

I will always be a fat person. That's fine. I want to be a healthy fat person and it is possible.

When kids in my son's school call me fat, he gets angry and defends my honor valiantly.
I sat him down and I asked him "What is the color of the sky?" He said. "Blue. with white clouds."
I said " So, someone pointing to the sky and saying 'hey sky, you're blue! You're sooo blue' they would be telling the sky something it knows about itself, right?"

He mulled this over and said, "So Captain Obvious over there is just telling you something you all ready know, huh?"

I love when he calls someone Captain Obvious. Coming out of a 7 year old's mouth stuns alot of people.
That's my little man cub.

The Boy Does me Proud

I love the way he puts himself in the band.

ElectroBoy and his Mom

I introduced The Boy to the joy that is Synth Pop.
How did it start, you ask? Well, it was The Mighty Boosh's fault..again.
During an episode called oddly enough, "Electro" in which Vince is asked to be in Kraftwerk Orange, a band with two girls who'll stab you up at the drop of a pin.

So I made a CD for the car and started teaching The Boy. We started off with The Human League - Don't You Want Me?, followed by The Cure's The Walk. In the mix we had Flock of Seagulls - I Ran, Yazoo's Don't Go, Berlin's The Metro, Heaven 17 - Temptation and Spark's I Predict. Of course Vince's drag was an homage to Ron Mael of Sparks.

How do you put 40 years of music into a kid's brain? Well, at least he's well rounded and slightly esoteric, which pleases me to no end.

One of my Photoshop things..

Called "Death Rides a Pale Pony"

I took the picture at Seaside Park, NJ.

Goths Need Love Too..

As I was going about my net stuff I stumbled onto this:

http://www.gothicmatch.com

I constantly get "Christian Dating Service" spam, at least Gothic Match would have been interesting.

~looking at yesterday's post~ Hmmm..Snape would have not only been a client, he would have been President.

Sorry, obsessing again.

Lusting after the Un-attainable

People who have visited my humble sorta cube/office/den of iniquity know that I have an Alan Rickman fetish. Especially when he's in his Snape drag. I have several versions of his "action" figure. (none of which do -any- justice to Mr. Rickman also rather short on "action" if you get my drift).
And I am not alone in this lust. When doing a search for images of Rickman/Snape for desktop images, I stumbled into a whole new world: FanFic and FanArt.
Fanfic is, as you can guess, fiction written by fans. Some of which is rather "starry eyed, holding hands, saving the world" type stuff.

And then there's the "other" type of FanFic, the naughty stories. I sat slackjawed reading some of the best written erotica involving established characters. Which leads me to wonder, has Mr. Rickman ever been curious enough to read about how Hermione saves him from "The Fourth Unforgivable Curse"? (Hint: the Latin root is Priapus.)

The realm of FanArt, for me, sets my teeth on edge. I've seen sites that use photos and type for some great design work, but the main bulk of fan art is poorly executed. I guess coming from an art background, I can critique a drawing like nobody's business. And the manga style drawings of the Potter gang. For the love of God, make it stop! I love manga, but when did this trend of drawing 'everything manga' come from? Personally, I'm not into seeing my Snape with big Astro Boy eyes.

After I get permission from several personal sites, I will post the ones I feel are the best at delivering great Snape images/stories.

Maybe tomorrow I'll post about my other lust object, William Petersen.

MS, me and Teri Garr

On Monday, I was asked to give the intro for Teri Garr at her lecture. The first thing I thought was "Oh my God, Teri Garr!! Yes!" After I calmed down, I thought what the hell would I say? We do have someone here that helps to put together notes for the intro's, but I do want something that is on a more personal level.
Teri and I have more things in common then I had originally thought. She and I are both adoptive mothers, both on the same meds, and I sense like me, she has not "embraced" her disease. Most days, I'm ok, but then any day, I could be MS's bitch. What is MS (Multiple Sclerosis)?
Multiple sclerosis comes from the Latin word "multi" meaning "many," the Latin word "plus" meaning "fold," and the Greek word "sklerosis" meaning "hardness." Put the terms together and you have "many fold hardness." So multiple sclerosis refers to multiple hardenings in the brain and spine.
This is from the National MS Society's site:
MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS consists of the brain, spinal cord, and the optic nerves. Surrounding and protecting the nerve fibers of the CNS is a fatty tissue called myelin, which helps nerve fibers conduct electrical impulses.

In MS, myelin is lost in multiple areas, leaving scar tissue called sclerosis. These damaged areas are also known as plaques or lesions. Sometimes the nerve fiber itself is damaged or broken.

Myelin not only protects nerve fibers, but makes their job possible. When myelin or the nerve fiber is destroyed or damaged, the ability of the nerves to conduct electrical impulses to and from the brain is disrupted, and this produces the various symptoms of MS.
So what does that mean to me?
Walking like a drunken pirate. Slurred speech. Vertigo. Depression. Fatigue. Numbness. Pain.
And the list goes on. Sounds like fun, huh?
Teri came out about her MS in 2002 and she is now a champion in the cause.
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
MS Lifelines, Sponsored By Rebif®

The Mighty Boosh and I

So one night I'm chatting on-line half watching the Beeb's American station, "BBCLite!" when The Boosh came on.

I was tranfixed by Vince Noir's hair (played by Noel Fielding). His partner Howard Moon (played by Julian Barratt) was blasting him for blowing the budget for the show on his hair. Which looked great, by the way.The setting is the "Zoo-niverse. Vince, with the abiltity to talk to animals, makes wearing a pancho a something fabulous and has a deep and profound love for all things Gary Numan. Howard, who tends to drift off into "jazz trances", is vain, in a book smart way. He has a deep and profound love for Mrs. Gideon, a fellow keeper. The series starts off with them, oh say taking care of a very ill gorilla, and then they're in a cab going to hell.

Vince is like the slightly odd, but fun little boy you always wished you knew and Howard is the one trying to keep it together, as older brothers would.

Vince Noir: Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard... Howard?
Howard Moon: This better be good.
Vince Noir: You know the black bits in bananas, are they tarantulas' eggs?
Howard Moon: Please don't speak to me ever again in your life.

How many zoo's do you know of with a live in shaman?

Noel Fielding's art is pervasive througout the show. Using his background in art, it's in the costumes, the backgrounds. Julian Barratt writes the music bits, which are spot on for the genre that's in the show that episode. The show is a breath of fresh, if quirky air.

Naboo's therapy for Howard, looking into the eyes of Phillip the kitten and his pal.

The Official Boosh Site
The BBC Boosh Site

The show reminded me of The Goodies.
The Goodies!


Sublime Brit Comedy