What follows is a short diddley-doo that I wrote a few years ago in honour of the American Independence Day. It’s quite a load of rubbish so enjoy.

Philodendron. Common name, Pothos. Derived from the Latin Vulgate meaning that which grows and spreads like wildfire yet can grow even in dark closets. This “devil’s ivy” has sprung up in every restaurant, every airport, every hospital, everywhere!

The obvious benefits of such a plant is well…obvious! They add a sparkle of green and yellow to the decor; they easily spread to cover a large area, and can be used to accent not only table tops, but also counters, shelves, bookcases, and in ancient times they even put them on either side of the portcullis of a castle.

But what we’re really concerned with today are the health benefits of the Pothos. As with any chlorophyll rich foliage, the Pothos is responsible for contributing to our ability to live and breathe on this planet.

Without the Pothos, oxygen would in fact be considered a rare commodity. So much so, that within years it would be so rare that it could only be found on the black market: bottled, canned, spritzed, and vacuum sealed. There would be different quality offerings of the precious O2. For those on a diet, there might be Diet-O2, but what if you want all the flavour of O2 but not all the gassy aftertaste, maybe they would offer O1.

At some point, they’ll start with the marketing gimmicks to get you to buy more at higher prices. New-O2, CherryO2, Diet CarbonFreeO2, Diet Black Cherry Vanilla O2. It will never end. All of this tragedy of events could happen were it not for the glorious Pothos.

Obviously we can’t do without this precious plant. Unfortunately they are so abundant that their relative value and cost is next to nothing. Any resident of our planet with $5 can go to their neighborhood Target/Wal-Mart/Kmart and pick up a Pothos. But imagine with me once again: if we suddenly had only a finite supply of them left, or if they only grew in one remote sector of the world, they’d become as valuable as diamonds.

You could only buy them at DeBeers Exotic Pothos Emporium, but you would have to get on a wait list and the only way to get on the wait list would be to call a special phone number at a special time and hope to not get a busy signal (sort of like voting on American Idol). Assuming you got through on the phone, and then assuming you got on the wait list you would still have to pass a rigorous Pothos Ownership Operating Process (POOP) Exam. Not only is there a written exam, but an oral exam, home inspection, and a requirement to sign a waiver allowing DeBeers to reclaim the plant in the case of neglect and allowing for periodic home re-evaluations. You’ll notice I have switched to the present perfect tense because this could actually become reality sooner than you think!

There are probably those of you out there who think “I’m safe. I already have several Pothos at my house so I don’t ever have to worry.” Unfortunately, the president, and I think we all know who that is, just passed a law allowing the military to enter any personal property and seize any live Pothos on the premises.

The law is actually so all encompassing that they can seize dead Pothos as well, or force you to search your garbage for any you may have thrown away. So as you can see, no one will be safe from the threat of Pothos extinction.

Well, except for the very very rich. Anyone making over $500,000 a year would be exempt from the new law of course. Heaven forbid we deprive the rich from their double half-caf, half-decaf O2 with a twist of lime. Besides, the middle class should just learn to be happy with the Novadollar’s O2-AuLait right? For those of you who aren’t bilingual, Au Lait means with milk. That’s French. Which means that if you traveled to France and wanted to have some O2 with Milk, you’d have to say “Au Lait” instead of “with milk” otherwise they wouldn’t understand you, because no one in France is bilingual. Be careful about using this term in other countries, such as Mexico or Spain, or they might send a bull charging after you, because Au Lait is surprisingly similar in sound to O’le!

Unfortunately, there are no Pothos in France, so I don’t know why anyone would go there anyway. Except maybe to see La Toure Eiffel, that means Eiffel Tower. But you can see pictures of it anywhere, so again I ask, what’s the point? I’d much rather go somewhere and see something that no one has ever seen or taken a picture of.

Maybe some remote cave in the middle of a vast line of underground caverns that maybe hasn’t even been discovered, and maybe contains a vast cache of Pothos growing wildly and abundantly creating so much O2 that if it ever escaped from the cave would throw off the balance of the entire global O2 market, sending O2 stocks crashing down and ensuring quality breathing air for anyone on our planet, turning billionaires and other rich folks into ordinary middle class within minutes. (reminds me of the Great Chopsticks Incident of 2004)

It could happen…

*This commentary is based on the Award Winning Best Selling Novel by the same author, and in no way supports or defames the holiday of Independence Day, because it has absolutely no content related to aforementioned holiday.

Memorial Day.

For me, Memorial Day is the ultimate in celebrations. I can picture it now. What it might look like, who might attend, what I would be wearing, how fabulous my hair would look, people being overheard saying “Love your hair, hope you win!”.

For me, it’s never too soon to plan the Memorial Day festivities.

First let’s talk about the food. Hot cider or wine punch, fresh seafood salads, maybe some rock shrimp or rock lobster WOO!, finger sandwiches, hand sandwiches, a SUBWAY party sub, exotic barbecued things, spectacular ethnic dishes served with hot sauce. The essence of every celebration is having the ultimate spread. Without a massive buffet, people get bored and leave. Because really, when there is nothing more to talk about, people either get married, or eat. This is why the USA is the fattest nation in the world.

No, that’s not PHAT, though some of us are definitely Pretty Hot And Tempting. It’s FAT - Americans eat all the time! You can’t walk any direction from my house without running into 4 Chinese, 2 Sushi, 4 American, 2 Mexican, or 8 Cafe restaurants, all within a 5 mile radius. Apparently we’ve nothing left to discuss, so we all retreat to the buffet line and fill our mouths with food so that in the event we DO think of something to talk about, our mouths are too full of soft chimichangas to bother. Anyway.

So now the food is planned. Next comes the entertainment. For me, any celebration worth its sea-salt (see what I did there? If you are still using regular salt, you can’t come to my Memorial Day) must have PHAT entertainment. At a minimum, a dance floor must be provided. And if you have a dance floor, you must have music. I prefer a professional DJ to mix it up for the event. Using a pro allows the guests to concentrate on dancing, instead of running to the CD changer every 4 minutes and 52 seconds (based on average track length of 100 statistically analyzed Top 50 cd’s).

Another reason to have a DJ is to allow guests to request songs, and feel like they are part of the process. Granted, most people request songs like Mamma Mia, or Here Comes the Rain Again, which are virtually impossible to dance to based on today’s standards, but atleast they feel like they are part of something larger than themselves.

Next on the list, is quite possibly the most important item to plan for. The Rent-A-Guest (TM). As with any celebration, there are going to be a lot of attendees that you may have never seen before. In these situations, it is sometimes necessary to salt the audience (if they are slugs) with Rent-A-Guest(TM) personnel known as “Instigators”.

These “Instigators” are responsible for getting the party started right, and getting the party started quickly, right?. They mingle with strangers, treating them like long-lost friends, and encourage people to get out on the dance floor to get their boogie on. Without the R-A-G(TM) you run the risk of a celebration that never moves more than 2 feet away from the buffet table, and ends at 7pm.

Now that we’ve planned the food, entertainment, and instigation, it’s time to concentrate on decor. We don’t want something too over the top, unless it’s Mardi Gras, which is an entirely different M Day. We also don’t want something too sombre that makes people feel sleepy. I find that a nice mix of floral arrangements, streamers, balloons, banners, and ice sculptures, makes a simple yet elegant atmosphere. The balloons give any child in attendance something to pop. The ice sculptures double as a conversation piece, and a punch cooler. Streamers and banners are great to fill any empty wall or ceiling space. And flowers and plants can be used to accent any area that needs a little colour.

Of course any time you have decoration, it is always important to have good lighting. Overhead or fluorescents are always a no-no. I prefer to use strategically positioned halogen spot lighting to enhance specific areas of the room, art on a wall, or maybe even an ice sculpture to give the appearance of glow. This also allows the resident Diva’s to bask in their own personal spotlight, if so inclined.

So now I’m almost done planning. I have the food, the entertainment, the instigators, the decorations, and the lighting. But for me, what it really all boils down to when planning my perfect Memorial Day is the colour of the felt in my coffin. I’m thinking hot magenta…

According to my Forgotten English Page-A-Day Calendar (so wonderfully given to me by Rachelle), we need to be celebrating Sheelah’s Day today with LOTS of whisky, specifically peat-reek-whisky. And yes, I spelled whisky correctly.
Here’s the scoop…

peat-reek-whisky:

highland whisky, distilled over peat fires (from Alexander Warrack’s Scots Dialect Dictionary, 1911)

Sheelah’s Day:

The day after St. Patrick’s Day is Sheelah’s Day, or the Festival in Honour of Sheelah. Its observers are not so anxious to determine who Sheelah was as they are earnest in her celebration. Some say she was Patrick’s wife, others that she was Patrick’s mother, while all agree that her immortal memory is to be maintained by potations of whisky. The shamrock worn on St. Patrick’s Day should also be worn on Sheelah’s Day, and on the latter night be “drowned” in the last glass. Yet it frequently happens that the last glass of St. Patrick’s Day, and another “last glass” or two, or more, on the same night deluges the over-sodden trefoil. This is not quite correct, but it is endeavoured to be remedied the next morning by the display of a fresh shamrock which is steeped at night in honour of Sheelah with equal devotedness.

- William Hone’s Every-Day Book, or Everlasting Calendar, 1827

Now that’s a holiday I can get in to.

In honour of this um, holiday…I present something from the archives…from last year’s green-day event.

—–

So apparently I missed the memo. As I went into the cafe to get my cheezy eggs, two bacon’s and coffee this morning, I discovered that I couldn’t see what I was scooping from the egg tray because of this gaudy green boa draped across the sneeze guard. What’s up with that, I thought to myself…

Apparently today is some sort of holiday or something…many people seem to be wearing green. I am not. I am wearing jeans which are blue, and a button up shirt which is orange, blue, and white. It’s nowhere near green. You couldn’t even make green by blending the colours I’m wearing.

My socks aren’t green, nor are my shoes, and neither is my undershirt or underwear. Glasses, not green either. In fact, about the ONLY thing on me that I can find that is even vaguely close to green, is a little bit of tarnish on my earring.

But I don’t think that counts. But really, where were the announcements? I saw nothing on the news, there were no banners on the freeways. No announcement on the radio, no flyer in my mail box, and no spam about drinking green beer. Not one single advertisement for St. Patrick’s Day.

Oh wait, excuse me, it’s not St. Patrick’s day any more is it? That wouldn’t be politically correct to say St. Patrick’s day…..my apologies.

As some of you in the states may know, yesterday, 18 February, was President’s Day.

If you’re not familiar with the origin of this…holiday…here’s a little snippet from the source du jour:

Presidents Day (or Presidents’ Day), is a commonly used, but erroneous, name for the federal holiday officially designated as Washington’s Birthday. It is also the official name of a concurrent state holiday celebrated on the same day in a small number of states. It is celebrated on the third Monday of February. [Link]

Yes, you read it right. It’s a false named holiday. It started as a celebration of our “Founding Father”, but then through a failed initial attempt to combine Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, the retail industry stepped in and made the decision for us. President’s Day would celebrate ALL presidents, and it would be a shopping day for everyone who works at a company that recognizes the federal holiday (basically anyone but retail).

What that furthermore means, is that everyone who works retail is working on the 18th, while everyone who doesn’t work retail is SHOPPING on the 18th. It’s a win-win for everyone, in my opinion.

Now, I did not do much shopping on the 18th - only grocery shopping because I wanted to prepare a special dinner in celebration of yet another fake holiday. Instead of being a retail whore, I accomplished two primary things while I was at home on the 18th.

First, I solved our 4×4 Rubik’s Cube, which was not much of a challenge since we pretended it was a 2×2 and only scrambled it in groupings. I solved it using the exact same process as one uses on a 3×3 cube, but I was none the less impressed with myself.

Second, I finished the last edits on a short that I wrote last year, called The Peregryn. It will be available on the Amazon Kindle, and in downloadable e-Book format.

Third, ok so I did more than 2 things on the 18th, I did about 25% of the initial edit of the humorous adventure story that I wrote back in 2006. It’s around 58k words, so it’s taking me a bit longer to make the first pass, but I’m hoping to have it ready for publishing by end of year.

In other book news, David is actively editing The Venus Diary, and I hope to have his first round of edits incorporated by mid-March, in preparation for publishing by end of April. I have also submitted the first book in the series, Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale, to Barnes & Noble, Borders, and a local children’s book store for possibly inclusion in their brick & mortar locations. We’ll see what happens there.

So all-in-all, I worked on President’s Day just like many of you out there. But I did celebrate by cooking a yummy steak dinner, complete with asparagus and a festive salad.

Happy Birthday all ya’ll, except for he who must not be named.

I want to give a shout out to my long-lost friend D.H. (which stands for damn hot, and also Doug Hill) who lives in Atlanta.

Doug and I first met in college at Appalachian State University, lost touch over the years after he left, got back in touch, lost touch, got back in touch, and the story continues.

Doug was somewhat of a mentor/friend to me during my first years in college - and for that I am eternally greatful. Love me some Doug.

I’m happy to say that Doug is back into the blogging world again, and sharing with us some crazy adventures, including a recent skydiving trip.

You can read all about it and him on his new and improved blog:

…the fine print…

20 January, and my dearling Rachelle turns a million today.
Well not a million, just 40. Ok, not 40…she’s less than 40, but not by much.

Anyway…

Here is a photo montage covering the last 12 years of my life with Rachelle…give or take a few years. She’ll hate this I’m sure, but she never reads my blog anymore so…

Let’s start with the oldest picture of us that I could find…from 1999. Gosh I was so much thinner then…but don’t we look all cute at work.

Next up…2000 and Halloween. Don’t we look goth? Did I mention that I was also going to be in some of these pictures?

Next up…2001 and Rachelle has braces and bleached hair.

In 2002 we were completely washed out at Buca de Beppo.

2003 and she had a grand time playing dress-up for Halloween…

In 2004 we took one of my favourite pictures of the two of us.

2005 and 2006 and 2007 were a blur…

And here’s hoping for many more years of this wild and crazy woman…Love me some Rachelle…