Raining Cats and Blogs

I have been inspired to get down and dirty and to reveal certain aspects of my life. Someone has put the notion into my head that I need to tap into that inner self that collects all the history and tears down the cob webs that are shielding some true lies. I was going to write about my first time  visiting  a Porn shop in Atlanta in the seventies, but revealing the true actualities of that experience is very benign in comparison with what is vehemently exposed today.  My Coed  daughter shows more skin than the three minute video I watched from a coin -op arcade shielded by a draped stained curtain that housed every STD under the sun……

During the 70’s in Atlanta, Georgia, the South had certain rules and laws that governed their great City and protected  their poor Sainted pedestrians.  They have  (or had) a major street in Atlanta called Peachtree Street and this street had many branches that added middle names to the main thorough fare: like Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree circle, Peachtree way. That tree wound its roots throughout the metropolitan area until it landed in the pit of an intersection that was divided between church and Porn. During the roaring 70’s or should I say snoring 70’s from all the excess potheads that were left over from the Jane Fonda era;   Atlanta had an area that was baptized ” the Bible belt” on one side of the street while the other side harbored a strip mall of Satan.  This was a religious war of an unusual kind during those times in which the Holy Rollers were trying to defeat the wHO’S -wHO of the porn industry.  This King of Thieves was a god in his Kinky community and owned one of the largest Porn magazine’s of its time. He Hustled night and day to defend his empire against the seething zealots who wanted to tear down the walls of Jack shack across the road from the House of Lord.  The marketeer muscled in and kept his ample footing and coveted the holy land down the street which left a gaping gloryhole and no room for Jesus…..

Now my roommate and I had a night off from our airline employer and decided to have a night  out on the town which included too many Mai-Tai’s and a giggling stop at an all night, dimly lit, porn shop.  When we entered the place we were immediately met by flailing inflatable body parts with orafices that never closed. I was laughing so hard I had to steady myself from falling onto a sticky floor, and I grabbed  what I thought was a handle  next to the counter, which turned out to be a removable object that vibrated off the wall. I tossed it to my roommate like a hot potato and she disappeared into another room. I found her a few minutes later calling out to me from behind a crusty curtain laughing hysterically  and peering into what looked like a colossal view master.

So there we were, loaded on rum and curacao, and dropping change into a coin-slot to watch our first pornographic movie.  We spent close to three dollars in change to watch one minute of a young lady dressed in Hot Pants and a Daisy May tube Top doing laundry.  My roommate added another two dollars and at the very end of that segment the laundress was approached by two masked Mucha Lucha wrestlers carrying what looked like liquid Tide.  We were stuffed behind this curtain of shame and took turns to watch the elicit theater until I commented to my roommate on the amazing 3-D effect permeating from behind.  My roomie asked what I was referring to and I said that the “curtain has a moistness to it and smelled like a bad night with Sodom and Gomorrah”.  She removed her eyeballs from the lens master and broke into uproarious laughter when she  turned around and witnessed a man standing outside our curtain enjoying his own “live” peep show..starring  US.

The last thing I remember was sprinting out of the that place like a bat out of Hell and my roommate running through the door tango-ing with inflatable Barbie deflating around her neck and the store operator chasing us through the parking lot………all the way across the street where we ran to a safe house:

A Church. …………………………..We stuck Barbie in a Confessional and called it a night. It’s O.K. she was in the missionary position..

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To Run with the Hare and Hunt with the Blogs

I’m off to the Tuscan sun (37 degrees) in 12 days and I am starting to feel elated. There is still a big part of me that harbors a shroud of anxiety at the thought of leaving my quasi adult children to roam in my home sans mommy. That is why I am a big supporter of Neighborhood Watch.  This is no ordinary watch where the “hood” posts glow- in- the -dark signs on dead trees only to be read by  passing fluorescent headlights; this is a watch that includes designated specialized attention from lovely neighbors who volunteer to randomly check in at my house unannounced on Friday and Saturday nights dangling their secret key.  This action keeps my teens on High Alert.  Kind of like Publishers Clearing house ,  the way the marketing Team of Todd Sloan and Associates  keep a close eye on the prospective winner before they pounce on them to present a  a giant cardboard check during halftime at the Super Bowl.  The contestant has an inkling of being followed but writes it off as a minor paranoia accompanied by an occasional hallucination of a Navy Blue Van.  It’s the same feeling I inject into my Teens when I plan to go away for a few days; that feeling of someone possibly stopping by for a cup of sugar at midnight who entertains the same suspicious glare unlike myself….That look that can clear any house of unwanted public… Needless to say it helps a mom sleep comfortably at night when she is out of town, far, far, away, sipping her Chianti Classico with a side of Fava beans…  I have lived in many a neighborhoods throughout this fine country and I have to say that where I have landed now harbors some of the most eclectic group of people, and I enjoy everyone of  them. Well, almost everyone of them.  There are some that have gotten lost in translation, which can happen when you live close to one another over a five year span. It’s a lot like having room mates at times. Some you enjoy sharing your intimate pasts and some are just too high maintenance and add too much drama to an already infused Camille society.  I no longer have issues with whether or not I like my neighbors, I have a sixth SCENTS in regards to  people. Albeit..Charly. I now leave that ability, in my dogs paws. Charly has a great sense of ” I don’t like you ” smell. He is very protective of our domain and lashes out at the ones he feels are a threat ,and  yet,on the other paw, he acts like a bouncer at Club Rave and sorts through the melee with his snout in the air, and upon his approval, let’s them pass through the threshold with a tail wag. I think dogs have a sense of self worth and who is worth sensing. Sometimes Charly has a gaze that looks through your soul and if he could verbalize to someone he would be spouting worse than a tea kettle on high.  Charly is relentless when it comes to visitors that rub him the wrong way. He is a high strung combination of a couple of breeds that should never have mixed in the first place, yet when he chooses who he wants to befriend, he is all over them like a cheap suit licking last nights after shave off their satin cheek. Personally I think my dog has better judgment of a persons character than I do.  When I walk him around the “hood” he has  become very selective as to which car he wants to chase after. It use to be all cars, but now as he watches them drive by he methodically watches and contemplates which neighbor’s vehicle is going to get the Charly rant.  Funny, it always ends up to be the same ones. And , oddly enough, they happen to be the neighbors I can no longer tolerate other than a passing wave from my free hand. Keeping it on the down-low… Now on the other hand, Charly charges towards the ones he likes. It’s all about the scent.  Think about it, does anyone really like a not-so nice-smelling- person?  I think my dog is on to something that Freud or Jung never tapped into: The aura of aroma.

As long as the sniffing stays above the waist………………

Absence Makes the Blog Grow Fonder

Some one saw my blog and made a constructive critical acclaim to the way it looked.  She said that it didn’t have enough “zip” to it and that I “needed to add more ambiance and eye-catching glitter”.  I told her to put down her Rose` colored wine glasses and just try to enjoy the humor of it all.  I happen to like the dark-haired green and black cartoon version of a silhouette that keeps reminding me of what my body looked like twenty years ago.  I haven’t blogged for quite sometime due to the fact that I was actively pursuing some academics that might help me further a career that was lying dormant over thirty years ago.  After getting my fifty-something year old carcass out of bed at 5:00 a.m., and jumping into a sassy saffron uniform with the school logo stitched over my left breast, and downing a cappuccino while racing the other commuters in the dark to board a freezing train that wreaked of diesel and radiated loud gum popping cell phone addicts in the quiet car and after brandishing 29 credits for three months and harvesting sleepless nights, watching the dust and grime host a no swifter party in my house, and neglecting my children ( who barely noticed between their social life and Ipods that I was missing), and, worst of all, forgetting that I owned a dog;  I missed passing a required course by two points in order to continue on with the program. I thought that if I resurfaced a career I would be helping the family income during these bouts of economic hardships. Instead, I found that my economics were becoming even harder while aspiring to achieve greatness.  After calculating the cost of this venture and weighing the outcome of age vs. job opportunity, while finding myself crying over spilt Martilnelli 2008 Pinot Noir, daily,… and realizing that I am not smarter than a fifth grader,…I decided to do what any normal red-blooded hormonal woman would do:  I booked a trip to Italy.  Isn’t that where all the menopausal misfits run off to during a time of reputable failure? As my neighbor so eloquently put it to me over her lovely pomegranate martini’s: Ah hell, you didn’t want to be a nurse any way..fuck em’.. No truer words spoken out of an elegant pearl clad mouth..

The beauty of this departure from my academic whirlwind is that is brought me back to the basics of what my purpose may be in life. Even though my children are growing and heading into the adult world, they still need me. They have been use to their mother hanging about and being at their beck and call throughout their lives. As much as it appeared that they were fine without me being at the helm, I could see that they were not. They watched as their mother turned into a maniacal obsessed text-book worm letting the responsibilities of the days slip into the abyss. They witnessed mommy breakdown’s from the pressure of not being able to tackle her Medication Math and Calculate with Confidence.  We were a family of a traveling husband, teens in action, a mom running amok, and Charly bearing the brunt and being locked up for hours, alone, in his room, with a night-light and food and water and an August issue of The Enquirer spread out on the floor. There was only so much that Charly could take, and peeing on yesterday’s news was his limit…  I’m sure Charly felt dejected and unwanted until someone came home from their daily activity and he was freed from his laundry room habitat and able to roam the great out doors to relieve himself.  My children are very capable individuals, and that is one trait that I am proud of.  My children will survive in this world and make wonderful lives for themselves with out me in tow.  My dog, however, I worry about.  I think about him when I’m away, I think about his well-being, I think about whether he is tearing up the wicker basket in the laundry room, or has dived into the pile of dirty clothes waiting to be washed and torn into every sock of every family member that has abandoned him for the day.  I think about him possibly sitting in is doggie bed staring at the white walls holding his hind legs with his front paws and rocking back and forth seething and thinking hate barks. These things weigh on my mind more than one knows, which is why I probably missed passing the school program by two lousy points. But I will say this, when I came home every day and sometimes into the night and opened Charly’s door, I was met with a wide-eyed, waggy tailed, sausage-shaped, tongue licking my face Mongrel that is irreplaceable and doesn’t care if I pass or fail,  only that I returned home.

Sometimes life does funny things to a person, like taking a 4.0 graduate and mashing them into elementary mush making them wrap their entire being around  the word stupid. And sometimes is takes a mangy flea-bag tail-wagger to pull you out of your Picasso Blue period and pounce to a different tune, a tune where you work like a dog and you don’t have a dog’s chance to be a Top dog, so you’re thrown to the  dog’s, only to return with your tail between your legs.

And sometimes you just have to face the inevitable and break open that vintage 1989 Chateauneuf du Pape that has been collecting dust in your wine cabinet awaiting that special dog day afternoon…….