I woke up early this morning but can't leave my room because the parrot is out of his cage and he'll attack me if I go near the kitchen.

Merry Christmas!

The dog won't play any more tennis ball goalie game with me which means I have to go back to constructing furniture for my mom's new house in San Diego.  I used to think that I'm very good at putting together this flatpack shiz (y'know following directions that require no reading knowledge, counting out my dowels beforehand, etc.) but I guess I've just been spoiled by IKEA.  I mean, my mom should be very thankful she's got a working drawer on her light cherry finish, craftsman-style three-shelf-plus-drawer unit thingy here.  It was looking pretty hairy for a while there between step 8 and 9.

Also, I hung up a picture today. [1]

I'm pleased as a peach to be back in Cali.  It finally stopped raining and warmed up here in SD.  Hopefully there rest of the week the weather will behave.  Christmas is going to be strange enough this year.  I don't particularly want to be trapped inside with the Crazies. [2]

Hungry now.  Ego wants some crackers!

Endnotes:

[1] This is kind of a special picture.  It is supposedly a signed print by Salvador Dali.  Now, it is signed by Dali but a lengthy federal investigation has apparently revealed that the print itself was of artwork that Dali had not created.  A little embarrassing for the estate, and the museum involved in the scheme, but whatever.  Surrealists... you can't live with them, and you can't cover their faces with bugs and expect them to care...  Anyway, when I was very little and Dali was still alive I wrote a letter to him thanking him for the fraudulent painting and included a picture of my own with butterflies on it I think.  My mom sent it to the Royal Hawaiian or whatever museum was in charge of his estate.  And they sent it to him!  And he wrote me back!  And he sent me a big, signed coffee table book of his paintings.  So that's neat.

[2] The Crazies are my mom's australian shepherds, Lance and Bo (whom I call Bobo the Chimp when outside my mom's earshot).  They race around the house, ricocheting off of everything.  And if I have any food they sit right next to me like bobble-head dolls and pant until I yell at them to go away.  And Lance's tail was docked incorrectly so its a few links too long.  This means that if he's wagging his tail near you it feels like somebody is scratching you with their index finger which makes me want to shriek.  Most dogs I like but these are neutral in my book.

About a year ago I swore Atlanta, GA was dead to me.

I would never again fly in and out of GTR (the Golden Triangle Regional airport - there is a euphemism here, I'm sure of it) through Atlanta International.  After being stuck there for nearly thirty-five hours I can, with some real legitimacy, assert that it is an evil place.  Especially Concourse C.  Lots of bad energy in Concourse C.

Anyway, here I am.  Stuck in GTR because our flight into Atlanta is delayed.  I have been told not to worry about making my connection from Atlanta to LA because that too has been delayed.  If I lived in Macon I'd be home by now.

GTR would a be a pleasant and peaceful place if there weren't three competing sound systems (two different muzak systems, one for the waiting area and one for the vending machine area 8 feet away, and Fox News being blasted from the one tv).  The seats are fairly comfortable.  There are only three flights out a day so its never particularly crowded.  And because there are never more than 40 passengers to speak to, a human being makes announcements instead of a loop of british-accented security reminders like in other airports.  And yet it is as if, out of some sort of deep-seated insecurity about being a backwater landing strip, they have to turn up the volume on everything.  Like its not an airport if there isn't a medium roar of ambient noise.

Also of note: what appears to be a trophy case for Century21 real estate associate Doris Hardy.  There's one for "Centurion Hall of Fame" and one for "'Top 50' in Mid-South Region" (I ask how many more than 50 real estate agents are there in the Mid-South Region?) and one for "Only MS office with Certified Integrity Selling Facilitator."  What the crap?  I'm intrigued.  I'm going to give this Doris Hardy a call.

Oooh!  oooh! TSA just opened up the security area!  This looks very promising.  Next stop, well stupid Atlanta, but THEN THEN the City of Angels.  As Daniel says "home to Titos, Applepan, and the team that will not be named (that is not named the Clippers)."  Victory and/or the basic service I paid good money for is nigh!

Smittens!

If, in the next four days, a Boeing 737 crashes through my roof, killing me while I brush my teeth in my ugly goldenrod-colored bathroom (dismaying yes, but I always knew I'd die surrounded by a terrible shade of yellow), don't chalk it up to chance.  It will be the direct result of one of the following (in case you choose to sue for emotional distress):

1. My neighbor has fabricated a holiday landing strip in his front yard.  So bright and so blinky.  Impressive in its ability to both drain the local power grid and misdirect planes.

2. God is smiting me for laughing while Sloane barked at the baby Jesus figurine in said neighbor's illuminated and inflated nativity scene.

First I'd like to say that I kicked a linguistics professor's ass at the ring-hook game at Dave's Dark Horse Tavern tonight.  There's a little hook on a wall and a ring at the end of a rope attached to the ceiling and, well, its the conservation laws lab all over again.  Release the bowling ball on the rope right in front of your nose and conservation of momentum dictates that it will never bash in your face.  Unless you're Mr. Robinson and your AP Physics class hates you and tries to tap the bowling ball a bit as it swings back down the aisle.  I mean, not that I ever did such things.  But I suppose I didn't stop the people that did.

But really meine Lieblings I want to tell you about the signs.  There are two signs in the greater Starktropolis area that make me laugh out loud every time I see them.

The first is a giant billboard mostly taken up by the word "Mississippi", except with the ss reversed so they make you do a dyslexic double-take I guess.  And then at the top it reads: "Our children can't read!" which in itself is already so pitiful and plaintive.  

THEN at the bottom it reads: "We are all losers!"

So comically sad!  I have half a mind to call the 800 number and console whoever answers by pointing out that California is 49th in the country for primary ed.  And its housing bubble burst.  And every year its wildfires drive everyone to the sea.  Rob Lowe's house was worth less than his mortgage AND it burned down.

(And I'll be there in a week.  I'm so excited I could cry.)

The other is actually two signs.  So you know the McDonald's just past the Hwy 12 entrance to Starkville?  Right where it crosses Spring Street?  Yeah, so they have a message up that reads: "FREE LATTES" (you read this and then immediately think, "What the fuck?  Am I in Carmel?").  

Then, you know the Strange Brew coffee place/gas station on the corner?  Well their little message board for their sign is basically right next to the McDonald's one.  And it reads: "IT'S A TRAP!"  I almost drove off the road.

Now every time you enter Starkville by this route you must shout "it's a trap!"