On the downslope

By on the downslope, I mean many things...on the downslope of summer into fall. I just spent MORE THAN 10 MINUTES outside and didn't break a sweat. Of course, I spent that time sitting on the stoop with my downstairs neighbor, drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. But still...there was no sweat. And that in itself is saying something.

On the downslope of our time in this big, spacious apartment. We're moving in 6 days, to a much smaller 1BR unit on the ground floor. My husband is afraid it's the unit in which someone committed suicide last year, and is therefore sufficiently skeeved out by the entire prospect.

In the chaos of cleaning/sorting/packing, I have realized that I have irrational attachments to certain items. I am 33 years old, and I still have my stuffed Christmas moose from 1989. Mooseltoe is 21. I'm finding myself talking about Mooseltoe more and more lately, and I'm not sure why that is. I think because he is representative of my last Christmas with my Grandma Harriette, who died shortly after I turned 13. I feel like I didn't really get to know her. I wonder what our relationship would be like now that I'm an adult. Same with my Grandpa Earl. I have heard so many stories about them both, and I kind of feel like I got cheated on the grandparent thing. Harriette and Earl were my dad's parents. They were both much older than my mom's parents. They had both been married before they met each other (very taboo in the 40's). Therefore, they died when I was pretty young. 13 when Grandma died, 16 when Grandpa died.

This is going to sound absolutely terrible, and I'm halfway ashamed that I think it, much less am about to write about it. I wish it had been the other way around, with my grandparents. My mom's parents...meh. My Grandma PeeWee was a very difficult woman. Very self-centered, very vain, very much about keeping up appearances. She could be extremely cruel, and often was. You can imagine my surprise when she passed away 2 years ago and I heard so many wonderful things about her. Turns out she was a wonderful woman, as long as you weren't related to her. My Grandpa Amos is....oy. He's 86, bigoted, racist, hateful, and is on the slow, ugly road that is Alzheimer's. He's a pathological liar, and a thief. He is not welcome in many of our homes because of this. He stole a huge pickle jar full of quarters from my mom. He was attempting to steal my Uncle Tom's partner's credit card and bank account information the last time he took a trip to Alabama. He stole my cousin's car. And it's not shit that just started happening when he got sick. It's been going on. He has no concept whatsoever of what is good and decent and honest. He just does what he wants and doesn't give two shits about the consequences. It pisses me off, and so I just don't spend time with him.

Wow. I feel better having gotten that out. I could continue on with my little Festivus Airing of Grievances right now, but I shall digress.

I'm looking forward to the move. It means we'll actually be able to get back on track with finances, get some bills paid, get ahead of the game a wee bit. It's still going to take some time. Jimmy's surgery is Sept. 9th, and he'll have about 8 weeks before he can go back to work. I'm looking forward to this surgery, too. 80% chance it will work, and he'll be fixed. For a while.

I'm also looking forward to just a fresh start in general. We've come to really resent all of our neighbors except Terry, with whom I was drinking beers earlier. He's a nice guy, he's helped me out considerably with some stuff in the apartment that I couldn't move on my own, and I've repaid him with delicious foodstuffs.

So I guess really, the downslope is also an upslope. Onward and upward and all that. Plus, I'll be closer to the apartment of the little old lady whose horse, I mean dog, I walk. She's about 185 yrs old, roughly, and she's Russian and barely speaks English. Her dog is a St. Bernard, and he weighs 1 lb for every year that Mrs. Vishnevetskya is old. Fortunately, her son has taught me some words..."I'm here to take Barney on his walk." "Thank you for the borscht, it was delicious." "Of course I would like a vodka."

I think I just abruptly ran out of words to say again here. Someday, I'm going to tell a proper story or something.

Because I feel l like must write something.

Two questions were posed to me recently. One by my mother, who I'm pretty sure was being sarcastic, but since she asked me via email, I couldn't be sure. The other by a comedian whose name escapes me right now. He was on Comedy Central the other night. Jeff Dye. Jason Dye. Something Dye.

Question from my mother: There are Orthodox Jews and there are the hardcore Hassidic Jews. Does that mean that Catholics are just Un-Orthodox Jews?

Good question. I'm not a theologian, but I know one, and I'm going to ask her. I just hope she doesn't un-friend me after the fact.

Question by the comedian: How come when a chick sleeps with like eleventy billion guys, she's called slutty, or a whore, but when a guy does it, he's a homosexual?

Here comes the uber-abrupt ending because I don't know what else to say.

Spontaneous Combustion

Spontaneous combustion is defined as is a type of combustion which occurs without an external ignition source. It is usually a slow process that can take several hours of decomposition/oxidation with heat build up to a point of ignition.

Unless, of course, you happen to live in St. Louis, MO. At the confluence of two major rivers. With like eleventy bajillion percent humidity. And yes, I stole that number from someone else, and yes, it's a valid unit of measurement for anything.

Then, spontaneous combustion happens the second you walk out the front door of your office in the afternoon, on a nice Tuesday afternoon in early August. When the air temperature is 102 and the heat index is 117, a human being can actually burst into flame immediately.

And I don't have anything else to write about because I'm currently recovering from my own case of spontaneous human combustion.