Come on Down. Or Over. Or… whatever.

Okay, well, Saint Mary’s College has decided I haven’t done quite enough damage up there yet, and I’m scheduled for a reading and lecture on campus next week.  You can come.  In fact, I beg of you to come, since there are about four other events scheduled for the same time and if it turns out to be just me and the chairs, I will cry.

The to-do shall be to-done on Saturday, June 6, 9:15 AM.  Where?  Excellent question.  I was told the location is the Vander Vennet Theater in the Student Center, but as neither a “Vander Vennet Theater” nor a “Student Center” were in existance when I was a student, I really have no idea where in the (#^% this is.  So I’ll see you there, I guess, assuming we all don’t have to ride in on our unicorns after sliding through the magic wardrobe and turning left at the Skittle tree.

new world at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Notes From the Back of a Black-Eyed Susan IV

I watched the Preakness this year with a champagne glass in one hand and a bundle of lilies in the other, because I was matron of honoring during the broadcast.  You’re getting this year’s coverage as it was meant to be seen:  From a hotel bar, in a cloud of tulle, silk, and painful shoes.

-Calvin Borel sits in the jock’s room reading The DRF, apparently under some sort of megadose of tranquilizing drugs.  The camera keeps its distance; there’s a danger that at any moment, he’s going to snap out of it and start taking flying leaps off the tops of the lockers or whatever it is he does on a normal day.

-Bob Costas flat-out refers to Mine That Bird as “an undersized gelding with a funny gait.” What needs to happen here is for Mine That Bird to come flying in from the side of the frame, hooves flying, all “I am gonna check yooooouuu into Smackdown Hotel!”

-Dr. Leonard Blach, co-owner of Mine That Bird, shares his memory of the Kentucky Derby, which would be extremely touching were he not wearing a shirt which looks as if it were featured, in a previous life, on a Very Special Episode of Miami Vice.

-Mine That Bird’s stall in Sunland Park is shown.  His name is written on a strip of duct tape outside his weatherbeaten stall, which is still wider, cleaner, and better lit than my first apartment.  It is indicated that he must also eat gruel for breakfast, and his afternoons are spent working in mines with occasional breaks for lunch and waterboarding.

-Overhead shot of the utterly empty infield, featuring the people’s answer to Pimlico’s decision to ban outside alcohol:  “It appears that has really substantially cut into the crowd on the infield.”  In other news, the sun rose today, and the government has been awarding stimulus money to dead people.

-Wider shot of Borel in the jock’s room, and while before he was wearing a baseball cap and a newspaper and a white top, the nation is now thrilled to discover that HE’S NAKED.  HE’S NAKED.  HE’S TOTALLY NAAAAAAAAAAAAAKED and the only thing preventing us from ascertaining his own gelding status is an artfully draped towel.  Bob announces that he’s watching us watching him, and the Level of Creepy rises fourteen million percent.

-Bob:  “We’re assuming that everyone knows these details, so…” So he’s going to repeat them.

-Footage of Borel at The Tonight Show, on which, fortunately, all seem fully clothed.

-Bob Baffert on the inclusion of Rachel Alexandra:  “The race went from being a vanilla cone to a banana split with all the toppings.”  First of all, don’t be dissing no vanilla cone.  Second of all… if a girl is entering where a girl doesn’t usually enter, I’m thinking that the word “banana” really isn’t the best analogy choice.

-Borel in the jock’s room talking to Mine That Bird’s jockey, Mike Smith. I cannot imagine what’s being said here.  “Got clothes on?”  “Yep.  You?”

-GARY STEVENS!

-GARY STEVENS! has been golfing or parking cars out in the Pimlico lot or something:  His neck is sunburned.  And yet, he fights on despite his handicap.  All hail The Stevens!

-In case you previously didn’t have reason enough to drink, we get a full twenty-second blast, deliberately and without provocation, of “Surfin’ Bird.”  And in case you haven’t heard this song in a while, allow me to assure you that it’s every bit as obnoxious and horrible as you remember.  I cannot believe this nation reached  the Moon with that in the background.

-Donna Brothers is wearing all white, which compliments her six sets of goggles.  She demonstrates how jockeys pull each set down, one by one, when the going gets muddy.  If this is the closest we get to stripping for the rest of the broadcast, I will dance the night away happy.

-Mike Smith lying in the jock’s room, beneath an orange…towel… or… blanket…. or…something.  Well, if your key to victory is spelled “Snuggie,” who am I to argue.

-Discussion as to whether or not Curlin and Rachel Alexandra would be attracted to one another, seeing as she’s  “super filly” and he’s “super colt,” and also whether or not the product of a Night of Wonder would result in a “super horse,” and wow this conversation got from horse racing to Hilter WAY faster than I’m used to.

-To steer us from the awkwardness of the SuperHorse conversation, Tom Hammond reaches for the cheerful, safe ground of Eight Bells.

-GARY STEVENS! has produced a hard-hitting investigative report on Mine That Bird vs. Rachel Alexandra.  He has measured their respective worth by standing next to each and ascertaining which horse he could see over.  This is not a joke.

-Necessary Preakness Fact of the Day:  George Washington was a frequent guest at racetracks.  Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

-I’m assuming something really important happened at this point, such as further visual detailing of goggle strip teases and equine sex, but I am summoned from the bar to give my matron of honor toast.

-Return in time for The Montage of Calvin Borel, set, for some reason, against “Are You Gonna Be My Girl?”  Oh, I see.  We’ve already blown the royalty budget on “Surfin Bird.”

-Dish.  Bob Costas asks what Borel and Mike “Snuggie” Smith were in conversation about.  Calvin says it was some sort of question about Mine That Bird.  See, why don’t I believe you, Calvin?

-Now Bob would like to know the following: If Mine That Bird won the Preakness, and Rachel Alexandra wasn’t in the Belmont, and Calvin had the chance to ride Mine That Bird in the Belmont, and a train left California at 10:42 AM, and the ambient humidity was 57%, what would he do?  Calvin’s response:  “….”

-Lucky U Texting Game!  Win a 2010 Preakness Stakes VIP Trip!  We desperately need to fill the infield!

-ZZ Top, because when you think “horseracing,” you think “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide.”

-Mike Smith, deSnuggified.  I do like these silks.  They’re sparkly.  Really, any silks that don’t alter air traffic patterns are good, but anything which looks like it just came off the back of a cast member of Xanadu is a bonus.

-Borel leaves the jock’s room, providing the world with an eye-level shot of him zipping up.  Very little is said about this.  Very little can be said.

-GARY STEVENS! remarks that Rachel Alexandra “looks so happy right now.”  Her mane is all trussed up in a bunch of little balls.   I would not be happy at all, with a hair day like that.

-“Riders up!”  Big improvement over the Derby coverage:  This time, we get to hear and see it.

-Oh, but don’t worry—NBC made darn sure there was talking over the call to post.  You’ve got one more race to nail this, people, or it’s epic fail for the 2009 Triple Crown season.

-Well, this bodes well:  Rafael Bejarano has to sprint across the paddock to catch up with his mount, Papa Clem.  Papa don’t wait for no small men.

-Here’s a sentence you don’t get to bust out every day:  “Our blimp had to vacate the area.”  Oh, no.  How are we going to see the enormous pulsating crowd on the infield?

-It’s confirmed that Luv Guv was named after New York governor Eliot Spitzer.  Why would you do that to a poor innocent colt?  Really, why?  Was “Monica’s Cigar“ not available?

-Bob uses the words “fortnight” AND “equine” in a sentence.  I eagerly await such flowery narration of Calvin’s crotch as it makes its way to the gate.

-Bob has an NBC Sports umbrella!  “The Woodlawn Vase taking on water as well,” he confirms.  I desperately want the military guard next to him to bust out a ShamWow.

-The words “captivating” and “intrepid” issue from the television set.  Well!  Someone’s got his thesaurus function on.

-Big Drama has bucked off Johnny Velasquez inside the gate.  Aaaaaaaaannnnnd nine thousand people tear their tickets into tiny little pieces.

-Rachel Alexandra in the lead.  We think.  There’s rain on the lens and the reception DJ in the ballroom has chosen this precise moment to play “Shout.”

-Much shrieking in the bar as Mine That Bird makes an astonishing challenge on the filly at the wire.  Much slapping of hands against mahogany:  “Another furlong and he would have had it.”  The women’s college graduate in me is thrilled; the mocker of hype is devastated.  There is general agreement that Borel would have gotten Mine That Bird home in front. There is further agreement that we ought to take advantage of the open bar.

-Disappointingly, Borel is markedly calmer than after the Derby.  The meds are kicking in again.

-Mike Smith, covered in mud and piiiiiiiiiiissssssed.   “No one would let me in on the rail!”  Well– yeah.

-Borel dumps water over Rachel Alexandra’s head…  bottled water.  My German ancestors and I cry out a thousand times.  I don’t care if Rachel Alexandra wins the Triple Crown and lays down on the finish line of the Belmont to give birth a miraculously conceived SuperMegaAwesome Foal, Savior of All Racing:  She doesn’t know the difference between Evian and Eau de Pimlico Backstretch Hose.

-I am hauled back into the ballroom.  Trophy presentation, thou hast been usurped by cake.

Calvin has two jewels at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

On Memorial Day

By request, here’s a rerun of “At Arlington,” originally run last Memorial Day.

You are lions to little me, and what’s more, you never thought of yourselves as such.

You stood in straight lines at attention where my legs buckle with fear, with fatigue, with laziness.

You stayed kept your politics to yourself so that I might speak of reality television and infomercials.

You bent with the weight of heavy gear and heavy responsibility so that I could stand impatiently in amusement park ride lines, cell phone in one hand, cold drink in the other.

Your family followed you without complaint so that I can lay my head down at night without any real concern as to whether or not mine is safe.

You drank dirty, warm water so that I could have my choice of bottled Perrier in the endless aisles of a well-swept grocery store.

You submitted to the orders of others so that I can pick up and lay down work at will.

You stayed up all night, watching, so that I could sleep in and roll my eyes at the cost of a Frappuccino.

You missed the birth of your first child so that I could weep over not having had a vacation in the past year.

You put your entire career on hold so that I could fret over the low pay for freelance writers these days.

You endured desert heat so that I could smack at the thermostat and make a single phone call to fix it.

You live in assigned quarters, tents even, so that I could complain about property taxes.

You took hauled crates of humanitarian aid into Jeeps so that I could tap the softness of my arms and complain about the terrible shape I was in–how fat, how underdeveloped.

You drove tanks into sniper fire so that I could look around the quiet streets of my small suburb and say, “There’s nothing going on around here.”

You put off higher education so that I could gnash my teeth over my alma mater’s poor football showing.

You shivered in driving rains so that I could tell everyone from my heated home that I was having trouble adjusting to these terrible Virginia winters after five years in Florida.

You climbed into fighter jets so that I could balk at the poor customer service of the airlines.

You read technical manuals so that I could kill twenty minutes with a gardening magazine.

You deferred credit to others when I said, “Why aren’t I famous yet?”

You ate another MRE so I could sigh over microwaved leftovers from a bulging refrigerator.

You said, “Give me a gun,” when I said, “But a rerun of Golden Girls is on.”

You said, “I’ll go,” when I said, “I’m too important here.”

You said, “Send me,” when I said, “I’m afraid to die.”

You said, “For others,” when I said, “For me.”

And I thank you.

very grateful at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Dear Drivers

Nineteen hours on the highway can lead to lots of new friends.

-Hey, West Virginia plates which read THE LIP:  You might want to rethink that.

-Hey, chick with the “BAD ASS GIRLS DRIVE BAD ASS TOYS” bumper sticker:  You’re driving a Corolla.  I’m pretty sure a Corolla doesn’t fall into the BAD ASS TOY accordion file.  I say this with a certain amount of authority, because I too am driving a Corolla.

-Hey, City of Dayton:  That downtown construction you’re doing?  In the middle of morning rush hour?  That’s outstanding.  Ladle on more of it.

-Hey, enormous van with handicap plates:  That tag enables you to all the good parking spaces.  It does not give you permission to suck as a human being and cut off everybody within a fifteen-mile radius.

There Goes the MOH

Longtime The Readers will remember Flipper, Oogie, and G-Force, my partners in bacheloretting when I lived in Florida.  We are now 50% married.

The latest addition to this total was Flipper, who, while an otherwise intelligent person, thought it best to choose, as her matron of honor, the person most likely to become lost on her way down the aisle.  Since this was big-girl time, I sucked it up, did not drink until after the wedding, and did not get lost.  I tripped halfway down the aisle instead.

In my defense, these are the shoes I was wearing:

The aisle was also carpeted and a whole entire ten feet long.  I AM NOT TO BLAME.

I am to blame, however, for certain reception-related behaviors, much to the delight of the bride and groom:

Oogie’s two-year-old was in the house, and he danced all night, as long as one defines “dance” as “running in circles on the dance floor with your eyes closed.”  This I did, because the shoes, for serious, people, had cut little ridges on the instep.  So in order to keep myself awake and moving, that is what I did:  Circling the dance floor, eyes occasionally closed.  You know it’s a good night when the DJ has to come over the sound system and tell you to stop it.

celebrate good times come on at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Those Meddling Kids

This weekend I saw a display of plush Smurfs at the little mom and pop boutique, Le Mart de Wal.  Smurfette and Papa weren’t far from a wall of Play-Doh and another wall of New, Fast-Pitch Softball Coach Strawberry Shortcake.

See, whoever owns Hasbro and Mattel aren’t stupid; they’re well aware that we Children of the 80’s are now grown and reproducing– especially my family, The Amazing Breeding Germans, with three babies on the way in 2009 alone.  We push a cart past the toy aisle, we see a Sit’n'Spin, we forget that it really kind of sucked, and into the cart it goes.  Your childhood shall be my childhood, son, no matter how many questions about communism the Smurf Village raises.

There are new episodes of Scooby-Doo out on DVD, too, complete with new theme music by Blink-182 and a totally stoned Shaggy.  The only apparent change is that Fred has been made .0000000000001% less metrosexual; he is now without his alarming ascot.  Plotlines remain reassuringly stupid.

“Is that a real monster?” Jim The Small Child Nephew asked his mother, with growing anxiety, the first time he watched it.

This was the cue for Julie The NephewsMama to bring him into one of the great truths of life.  “In Scooby-Doo,” she said, “it’s never a real monster, only a guy in a mask.”

Next episode:  “Mommy, is that just some guy in a mask?”  And so another American is brought into the fold of the apex of Western Civilization:  1980-1990.

Velma’s still a fashion don’t at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Gig Means Something Totally Different in Regency Romance Novels, Just So You Know

I stood before a display of mp3 players yesterday, and one, available for about $70, could hold four gigs and was about the size of a credit card.  About as thick, too.  These kids today, what with their gigs and their megabytes and their hi-fis!

Now I’m in Commodore 64 World again, because… I owned one of the first mp3 players capable of holding a gig, and it was most certainly not about the size of a credit card.  This was maybe five years ago, when I was bacheloretting it up in Florida and Circuit City was in existence and offered a 0% interest payment plan.  That is correct:  I needed a payment plan for my one-gig mp3 player, because it cost about five hundred dollars and was the size of the USS Nimitz.  It was the Zach Morris cell phone of personal music devices.  Oh, but we were rockin’, me and my dot-matrix screen.

aaaaaannnnnd the company which manufactured it is no longer in business at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Lonely Jacket

Really didn’t want to be back at Catholic Online in this capacity, but there you go.

heavy at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

The Most Important Issue of Our Time

Thus spake Greta to Miss Teen California:

“So what’s the difference between this pageant and the Miss Teen USA pageant?  Is it because you’re a teenager?  Are you a teenager?”

“Yes.  I am a teenager.”

-On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, 10:20 PM

ssssssiiiiiiggggggghhhhh at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Educated

Having already lost one high school mentor to cancer a couple of years ago, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the back of the desktop chair when I learned that my alma mater’s former assistant principal was in the final stages of breast cancer:  When would it stop?

Janet Bamberger had the linebacker position in the world of education:  Endless, thankless, bruising work, with none of the ceremonial niceties and terrible authority of full-on principaldom.  She was, instead, the disciplinary arm of the administration, with all the adolescent loathing and mockery that came with it.  She’d swoop down on student infractions, her small frame but close-cropped white hair brooking no nonsense and no excuses.  They called her The Bald Eagle.

But she reveled in the academics, hitting the classroom for a course in Cincinnati history and shepherding her students through award ceremonies, scholarship applications, and who knows what-all. She wrote me a perfectly lovely note in support of my writing.  At the same time, she gently shoved me in the direction of political science, wheeling an enormous bulletin board into the school’s main hallway and inviting me to plaster it with pictures from a workshop trip to Washington DC.

So I wanted to make sure she knew at least one of us noticed.  I wanted to make sure she knew that at least one walked out of that school not thinking she was a professional killjoy, an enemy of youthful self-expression, a vindictive despot who relished filling out a detention slip.  She never married; she never had a child.  But hundreds of daughters passed over her office threshold.

“I will write her a letter, ” I told myself.  And then– well, you know.  Life.  There was a full-time job, and sleeping, and television to be stared at with blank, exhausted eyes.  Before I could write it, she died.  By weighing my own life more important than her death, I missed the window.

But I had vastly underestimated my fellow alumnae and the quick wisdom that comes with motherhood.  By the time I saw the obituary– “J. Bamberger was educator,” and thus we have a life surmised– I learned that hundreds of alumnae  had joined a “Pray for Janet Bamberger ” group on Facebook well before I’d even heard she was sick.  The family heard; the family helped.  I had little to do here.

Say thank you today.  Say thank you to someone who doesn’t get thanked very often.  It’s a wearing life, linebacking, but it provides cover and time for everyone else.

humbled at:  mbe@drinktothelasses.com