I have to administer my first final exam of the season today and then I will go on to my last class. I'm not really giving them an actual test. I just check portfolios of writing and then we have a fun awards ceremony, eat candy and take a class picture. It's fun. It provides closure and we satisfy the requirement of having to meet during the final exam period.

I have a headache that feels like someone is driving a railroad spike through my temple and I have a crap ton of work and errands to do.

That is why I've decided to blog a little this morning before I become a productive member of society once more.

One week from today I am leaving for Millpond where I will stay until New Years at the homes of various relatives like some sort of vagabond. I'll also be spending a lot of time alone because I have to write my thesis which is due January 15th and is a collection of memoir poems and prosish things that defy genre about my childhood growing up out in the country, in the drowned valley of the Susquehanna, near a low swampy marsh, in a landscape puddled with lakes (actual lines from the thesis by the way). Maybe that will give you a better idea of where I'm going, but maybe not. It doesn't matter.

The trip promises to be interesting. My relatives are acting up.

The other day Aunt Kiki, who lives in Florida, called my mother in hysterics because my Uncle Garble is losing his mind again. Aunt Kiki thinks we need to have him institutionalized and that he might hurt someone or himself.

Please refresh your memory about Uncle Garble here.

Uncle Garble and his Irish Traveler family have a long, detailed and intimate relationship with the crazy. It's part of their routine. They're probably running out of money. The welfare people might be looking too hard for jobs that they can all do, so it was bound to happen that someone in his clan would lose it. I guess it was his turn, although out of the whole lot of them, I think he might be the closest one to legitimately insane.

None of us except Aunt Kiki are bothered about it.

The whole thing started last week when my mother called Uncle Garble and said we were coming up for Christmas.

"Well don't come see me, because I don't want to see you," Uncle Garble told her.

"Why not?" my mother asked.

"I'm tired of people and I don't want to see you or anyone else and I don't want anything to do with anyone," he replied.

This was a little strange, but not exceptionally strange from him. You expect him to come up with off the wall shit like this. It's just who he is.

Normally though he and my mom write a lot of letters back and forth and talk every few weeks, but now he's decided he doesn't want that anymore, so whatever. My mom wasn't bothered by it. She knows how he is.

Uncle Garble is so strange that eleven years ago, at his father's funeral, he walked up to the casket, took off his eyeglasses and put them on my dead grandfather. Then he looked at them, took them back off and put them back on himself. After that he removed his hat and put that on the body, didn't like that either, removed the hat and put it back on his own head. It was so weird that in the midst of our tears, those of us who saw the whole procedure couldn't help but bust out laughing.

Personally, I'm relieved that Uncle Garble doesn't want anything to do with us. This saves me from wasting an afternoon to go to his nasty-assed trailer, only to sit there awkwardly and attempt to make small talk with people who don't have a full set of teeth between them and who, I kid you not, were furious about Obama's plan to "redistribute the wealth" and give free handouts to people who don't work. EXCUSE ME??? Really? Because I think they were talking about themselves. If that were true, that Obama were giving free handouts to people who didn't work, you'd think this bunch would be his biggest supporters. They'd be first in line at the check cashing store. And being that these jackasses don't have any wealth to redistribute I have no earthly idea what they were worried about.

But Uncle Garble is resisting treatment and refusing to go to the mental hospital. Aunt Kiki is worried. My mother said it's all jsut part of the plan. If he refuses to go, it makes him look crazier and it's more believable.

So that's one part of the story of my relatives.

The other part is that my other uncle, Uncle Bull, is separated from his wife, which is a story in and of itself.

Blehh. It's final's week for me if you've been wondering where I was. I didn't die from turkey overdose. I also wanted to spend time with my relatives that were in from out of town and then of course I procrastinated a bunch of important work that I had to do.

I did get the chance to observe some interesting drama over the weekend though.

Saturday night we were at my parents' house playing "Cathphrase" and watching movies with our guests. The movie ended around 1 am so Husband and I left. As soon as we got in the car a police man drove up. We thought it was our friend the cop who often patrols my parents' neighborhood and that he was stopping by to see if we were still up. We got out of the car and went up to the cop car.

It wasn't our friend. We explained that we thought it was and he said he was called there on a domestic dispute.

"Well it wasn't here because we were watching movies. We don't have domestic disputes," I said.

"No, it's the house next door," said the cop.

Oh jeez, I thought. What now?

My parents' next door neighbor is a whack job. His name is Lupo Lama and he looks exactly like a wolf man. He's Sicilian and has been divorced for a little over three years, so he lives all by himself in an enormous, gargantuan mansion where he always keeps the hurricane shutters closed. I've been over there a few times and he always shows off his stuffed lion. He has a real, taxidermied male lion on the landing of his grand staircase. It looks like something straight out of the Museum of Natural History and it has the biggest set of balls hanging off it. He always tells me how it cost him two hundred thousand dollars and I always wonder how a lion could have such big balls and why in the hell someone would pay that much money for a stuffed, dead animal to lord over their stairs. I can't think of a bigger waste of money. I find it even creepier than mounted deer heads.

Lupo is in his late 60s. All of his kids are grown. The youngest is in college and just moved out. His ex-wife lost her mind, lost a ton of weight and started hanging out in biker bars where she got a much younger boyfriend and left him. They had an ugly divorce and then he started dating this woman that we all called Charo because that's who she looked and acted like. After the hurricane, the ex wife got jealous that Lupo had a girlfriend and while the electric was off and we had a curfew, somehow this woman snuck in to the house and attacked Lupo and Charo with a butched knife. Charo escaped and ran down the street calling 911, but Lupo got stabbed in the back and shoulder. He ended up being ok, but the wife got carted off to the loony bin. It was a mess.

He dumped Charo a little while later and now every time I see him he's with a new latina woman. He dates latinas exclusively and his requirement is apparently that they all be crazy. Over the summer he tried to date a Jewish woman who lived at my old place of employment, but she proved far too normal and broke up with him fairly quickly. I can't say as that I blame her. Unlike most of the old ruch men around here Lupo dates a little closer to his own age, so all of his girlfriends are not only Hispanic and insane, they're also older. I always thought the rich old men would have fewer problems if they just went with women their own age, but Lupo Lama proves me wrong. He has just as many problems with the older ladies as his friends do with the nineteen year olds.

Apparently he was having a big problem Saturday night.

Another cop car pulled up in a couple of minutes with an older Hispanic woman in the backseat. The cop explained that she had just been let out of jail and needed to return to Lupo's house to get some things that she left there but that he wasn't home.

The night before Thanksgiving, Lupo and this woman had gone on a date to Olive Juice, the local martini bar popular with old men and trashy whores. This was their first date in real life. They had met on the Internet and Lupo had flown the woman in from California where she lived. She thought this meant they were engaged. At Olive Juice Lupo ran into a woman he was friends with and the new woman got jealous and attacked Lupo and his friend. Like actually attacked them. The bar called the police and then the woman attacked a police officer, so they arrested her and took her to jail for several counts of assault and who knows what else. She got out Saturday night and somehow managed to get the cops to drive her over to Lupo's house to get her suitcase and purse and return ticket.

The woman got out of the police car and instantly began causing a scene right there in the middle of the street at 1 in the morning after she had just got out of jail. She accused Lupo of doing this to her on purpose and swore he was inside and was trying to steal her things.

Lupo wasn't even home. She started with me first, begging me, very dramatically to call him. I told her I didn't have his number. She didn't believe me. Then she went to my husband and he tried to call Lupo for her, but there was no answer.

By that time my mother came out into the street and we filled her in on what was happening. The woman began screaming and howling about how she had no place to sleep and no credit cards and no money and nowhere to go and how Lupo had her purse and she had nothing and how she thought Lupo was a murderer who was trying to kill her.

Her story was that she had flown in, they went to Lupo's house and she knew immediately when she got there that he was a murderer so she really wanted to leave, which is why she suggested they go to a bar. Yet, she didn't take her purse. My mom called her out on this.

"Why would you leave your purse at a murderer's house??"

"I don't know! I don't know!" the woman cried, "I was so scared! I was under his power! He has powers."

Yeah ok. Lupo Lama definitely isn't a murderer and he really doesn't have any special powers. Plus, we already knew the woman was batshit.

Then the woman started begging us all for money.

"I knew this was coming," I muttered, because I did.

"I don't know you and I'm not giving you anything," my mom said.

"Please let me stay with you!" the woman said, "I know you husband. I see him Wednesday, the thirty three year old man!! I see him in his car and he say to come Thanksgiving. He is friend of mine!"

"You just got out of jail! I'm not letting you stay with me. I don't know you and I'm not getting involved in your shit, and by the way, my husband is almost sixty," my mom told her.

"I will be on the streets!!!"

"Well that should teach you not to fly across the country for men you meet on the Internet!"

It got loud. The woman wailed and howled and then pissed the cops off again by blaming them for all of this.

Pretty soon Lupo called my husband back and said he was at Olive Juice and would come home to give the woman her stuff but only if the cops stayed because this woman was so crazy that he didn't want to be alone with her. They stayed.

It all ended well. I don't know where the woman went, because we left, but I hope she got a flight back to California.

The next day my dad told my mom she should have let her stay.

"Are you crazy?" my mom said.

"But she thought I was thirty-three!!" my dad laughed, "I love her."

I think Lupo Lama needs to stop dating before he ends up dead. Talk about red flags. Wow. I haven't had that much drama in years.

More on Thanksgiving

So when I left off yesterday we hadn't even eaten yet and the hookers hadn't shown up. Hookers are usually late like that anyway.

Abe Kirchner came. Ive been talking about him for years. He always has a lot for me to write about, being perpetually involved in situations he shouldn't. He's in his sixties. His ex-wife the whore Brazilian Gabriella also came, but they weren't together. Before I continue, I need to give a little recent backstory on each of them.

Since the summer Abe has had the hots for my sister who is 26. He hangs out at her bar. He asks her to dinner, texts her. This will be important to the story later.

Gabriella on the other hand, is newly single, having broken up with her divorce lawyer Andre Lefkowitz whom she lived with for three years following her divorce to Abe. She is currently working as an escort but won't admit it, though it's pretty damned obvious. Gabby doesn't bother me that much. She's extremely cheerful and stupid and entertaining. My sister though, hates the ground Gabby walks on. This situation is made worse by the fact that Gabby can't remember my sister's name and inexplicably calls her Melanie instead. This enrages my sister. I think it's funny.

Abe brought his daughter Tiffani with him. She lives in California, is 23 and looks exactly like a young Pamela Anderson, complete with the boobs and all. She's the sweetest girl in the most tragic way. When you look at her you can just see how her only role models were the whores her dad brought home and how she turned herself into one of them because she knew that's what her dad admired. Perhaps though, I am the only person who sees these things. Tiffani is a wild, partying maniac and Abe, a wild partying maniac in his own right, can't stand to see all the traits he loves in other women, reflected back at him in his own daughter. This makes for disasters whenever the two of them are together.

Tiffani and my sister had been doing shots all night and were approaching Dutch Pickens levels of tore-upness.

At one point my dad, who had been grilling lamb (I know on Thanksgiving, right?) felt like he needed a quick shower to get the smoke off. He announced that he would be back in ten minutes, that he was going to take a shower. Tiffani heard him wrong and thought he said "take a shot" to which she replied that she'd take one too. Abe just about near came unglued, because he had heard my dad right and thought that his daughter was going to take a shower with my father. As if my mother wouldn't have knocked the shit out of her before the water even got hot.

A scene followed. Abe threw a fit and dragged his daughter out the door (not exactly literally) and said the night was officially over and that he wasn't going to have his daughter taking a shower with his friend. The absurd irony was utterly lost on him. Recall that he has been hitting on my sister, a mere three years older than Tiffani, and the daughter of his friend too. So what the hell? Perhaps he holds his own daughter to a different standard. My best explanation is that people I know are fucking crazy and that's all there is to it.

By then the hookers were finally here and we could dig in to the buffet.

Readers, I am pleased to introduce you once again to the lovely Velva Haux. Go read about her, and then come back.

Velva Haux lives across the canal from my parents in a grand, Key West style mansion. She runs an escort service and claims to be a former Playboy bunny from the early 80s. When we first met her last year she was married to a violent, abusive juice head named Tony, but now they are in the middle of a nasty divorce. In the past year Velva and my parents have become better friends because when Velva left Tony she ran to LA and entrenched herself in Kabbalah, like Madonna. She called my parents and started hanging out with them in LA when she wasn't studying Torah and keeping kosher. To show her devotion she got some Hebrew tattoos on her neck and always wears a red string.

Now I'm not going to dis Velva Haux too much here, because she's grown on me and I, surprisingly, don't usually judge sex workers as much as I judge everyone else (there are exceptions though). Velva doesn't get on my nerves as much as she used to because she's calmed down a lot since she's gotten rid of Tony. She also has a new boyfriend named Thor who looks exactly like a Viking superhero. We are all (male and female, gay and straight alike) totally in love with this man. Thor may well be the nicest guy in the world. He is a social worker who deals with addicts and he doesn't drink or smoke or anything. Plus, he rescues pit bulls from dog fighting rings. My parents have been helping him socialize a severely abused dog, but that's its own post. It also doesn't hurt that he looks like a better looking Matthew McConaughey. I don't care about that though. Thor is just a damned good person and you can tell it as soon as you meet him.

Thor and Velva brought a battalion of hookers and their boyfriends with them. There was a lot of lips and tits, collagen and silicone bouncing and jiggling around our Thanksgiving table. All the straight guys got excited and all the gay guys didn't notice because they were too busy drooling over Thor. It was hysterical.

In addition to all this, we had my orthodox cousins and grandparents here and my grandparents brought a Morroccan caterer with them who made lamb tagine and a dump truck's worth of baba ghanoush. It was her fault I got that freaking green, stench assed hilba all over my hands. I didn't mind the woman. She was really nice and so was her smoked eggplant spread, but hilba is this horrible green shit they eat in the Middle East that stinks so bad that I really can't describe the odor. I googled it and the only description I could find was that it was a pungent herb. Pungent my ass. A broken down subway car, packed with construction workers at the end of a long day, in hundred degree heat, smells a lot better than hilba. And I got it on my hands. I nearly washed my epidermis off trying to get rid of the smell, but I still reek.

The best part of our Thanksgiving though was the banjo player. Thor's dad is a very famous banjo player and he was down, so he brought his banjo and gave us our own private show, complete with folktales in between and stories about the history of the instrument and the music he plays. It was beautiful. It sounded like the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack. I have to admit that I have a deep, deep love of Appalachian folk music. It reminds me of the grandfather I'm named for. It reminds me of driving through the mountains in his truck, so when I heard the music it was like he was visiting from the afterlife for a little while, like his spirit was coming out of the banjo.

Thanksgiving at Casa Dei Sogni 2008

Our guest list changed somewhat from last year. Aunt Kiki and her family were struck down by a stomach virus, so we told them to stay the hell home with that mess. The last thing we need is puking and diarrhea around here. We have enough of that from alcohol. Also this was good because we didn't want to worry about her murderous younger daughters trying to poison the cranberry sauce or slipping our credit cards out of our wallets when we're not looking.

My dad's best friend Howie Lipshitz and his one-eyed, mean mother didn't come either because Howie is having romantic troubles and his long distance girlfriend in New York gave him an ultimatum of the sort that made him hop the next Jet Blue to LaGuardia and leave his mom to eat Thanksgiving dinner at her condo's clubhouse.

Lord knows where Mini-T and his mother were this year, so our holiday was not as diverse as usual and it was distinctly lacking in Villa Jo Quinn's sweet potato pie.

But who did show up at the Lawns' home, you ask?

Well, of course we had Star the massage girl who talks openly about her love of the shower massager, but this year she has dumped The Environmentalist from Newfoundland in favor of a nineteen year old (she's 35 like me). Star showed up with several nineteen year olds who called themselves pagans and they came here from the Rainbow gathering raw vegan/ foraged potluck. I tried to be nice to them but one of them sneered at me and walked away. I think I heard him muttering something about me being a capitalist. This didn't stop any of them from eating our food which was about the opposite of raw vegan.

I can't win. Either people think I'm a stuck up, rich white girl (when I'm dressed up) or they think I'm my parents' Guatemalan housekeeper (when I'm dressed normally). My beloved hairdresser joined us and late in the evening he came up to me, put his arm around me and said:

"Sweetheart, it's been a good holiday hasn't it? I haven't seen a single person asking you to get them anything in loud, slow, broken Spanish."

The hairdresser has been embroiled in some intrigue lately as he may or may not have been at some point possibly romantically linked to an extemely famous athlete. Apparently it was in all the gossip rags and all over the Internet but I didn't check. It's too scandalous for me.

In addition to Star, the scandalous hairdresser, and a group of young moon goddess worshipers, one of my mom's old friends from Millpond rolled up in the biggest, reddest truck I've ever seen. My mom and Aunt Kiki have known Dutch Pickens since they were kids. He works construction when he feels like it and lives over in Cape Coral now and he decided to stop in on his way to the Keys, so my mom made him stay for Thanksgiving. I knew we were in trouble when I walked in and he said to me:

"Y'on'tmemmermed'ya?"

Which translates to "You don't remember me do you?"

Aunt Kiki kept in touch with Dutch because of their unique relationship. She drunk dials and he drunk answers. The man is pickled. He woke up yesterday morning and my dad asked him if he'd like a coffee and he answered that he'd just as soon have a 40. And he did. Then he busted out the Crown.

Dutch is such a bad alcoholic that he boasts how he has made a full set of pajamas, a set of drapes and a car cover out of Crown Royal bags. I wonder how many it takes to cover a twenty year old Firebird. While he was here I managed to score three for myself, which I'm thinking about maybe using to sew a small throw pillow or perhaps a lovely violet vest for Canela. If he'd have stayed a few more days I may have had enough for a nice scarf, since I'm going up North in two weeks. I'd have been the envy of Millpond in something like that.

As the day progressed Dutch got so tore up that when he spoke it all came out in a long line of consonants with maybe one long vowel at the end. At one point I turned to my husband and said I had no idea how I could ever write dialogue for this man. It would look like this:

"GrrrrrHmthwrjjjjkkkkhhhhhggcccGAAAAAWWWWWWWWW."

Really. I don't think Dutch even bothers to open his mouth when he speaks, except periodically to breathe through it. He was so drunk that he didn't even notice when the hookers showed up. My third cousin twice removed/ free loader from Israel was all about them though.

Boaz showed up last week. Just like that. He just showed up. He's Uncle Ben Yehuda's grandson and he's 24 and as I commented to someone over dinner, Boaz looks like he dug himself up out of a grave; like he's a zombie. I expected one of his arms to fall off into the kosher turkey and I maintained a safe distance lest he bite me and then I too might turn into a zombie, which would be terrible since I just signed up for thesis hours and I really want to graduate.

Boaz comes from the bad side of my Israeli family. In Israel they have this very elaborate class system, which is kind of stupid and which I won't get into on here right now, but my grandparents come from the very privileged class. Uncle Ben-Yehuda, who is a wack job, is my grandfather's youngest brother. He married someone from the lowest class. It would be like if an old money WASP married a girl from the rusted trailers of Appalachia. From then on, his side of the family has been trashy, like many of my Millpond relatives, except Israeli. Boaz is 24 and had this brilliant idea that he would come to America and work in a mall kiosk selling Dead Sea hand creams and salt scrubs at the largest outlets in the world, which are here. His grandmother told him that he could just show up and stay here at my parents' house and drive my parents' car and it would all be great. So he believed her and did just that. Except my parents didn't know about and weren't so keen on the idea and then once he got here he realized he didn't have a job after all. So for the past week he has slept all day and spent all night on my parents' computer, onto which he downloaded all kinds of bad stuff, including a Trojan Horse virus, which practically destroyed the whole computer. When my husband tried to fix it, and subsequently cut off his Internet access, Boaz threw a fit. Like it was his computer! Then he tried to act like he didn't have any money and tried to guilt my parents into giving him money. When that didn't work he got mad again. Then he decided that he was going to travel the world, going to techno shows, so I guess he really had some money after all. We made it so inhospitable here that he booked himself a ticket to Peru and left early this morning. But I think he really enjoyed his first American Thanksgiving. It was all about those hookers, but I'll get to them in a minute.

So Husband and I have this friend who we are convinced is gay, but who will not come out of the closet. We think he is in denial to himself and that he doesn't think it's ok to be gay, and that it is causing him much strife. We hatched a plot to get him over here and show him some good, gay role models, which is more subtle than my original plan to just come right out with it and be like:

"Dude, just admit it, you like the cock and that's totally ok."

We wanted to get him together with the hairdresser who is not a stereotypical, effeminate flamer, to show him that gay stereotypes weren't true and that you could be gay and still like sports and things that other men like. We wanted him to know that gayness comes in all packages, not just the sparkly pink kind. We think that's his problem ultimately - that he believes he isn't gay because he thinks all gay men are interior decorators who scream shrilly and listen to Madonna.

The plan went terribly awry in a most unexpected way.

Our closeted friend ended up really taking a liking not to the hairdresser, but to disgusting Boaz. They disappeared into a dark, upstairs room together, doing God knows what, then left together and spent the whole night out so that ultimately our friend ended up taking him to the airport to catch his flight to Peru. We certainly hadn't foreseen that coming because Boaz, in his vileness, didn't seem gay to us. He told us he had a girlfriend in Peru (do not ask me how he got a girlfriend in Peru). Maybe he's bi? Maybe he was lying?

In any case, we were really disappointed that our closeted gay friend turned out to have horrible taste in men.

But wait, Boaz was really into the hookers. I'm just as confused as you, readers.

I'm going to have to continue this in a little bit as my hand hurts and your brains probably hurt from all this information.

In our next installment - Abe and Gabby, Abe's daughter, the return of the fabulous Velva Haux, a Morroccan woman and how I couldn't remove the smell of hilba from my hands no matter what I did.

My Thanksgiving

It's 11:30 am. I just woke up. I want to go back to bed. I think everyone who had Thanksgiving at our house feels the same way right now, except Husband who had to go to work. I will explain it all later, though a short list seems to be in order now as that's all I can muster.

Our Thanksgiving:

Hookers, Madams, Morroccan Food, No Nasty Casseroles, More Hookers, Pagans from a Rainbow Gathering, A Banjo Player, Two Enormous Black Dudes that looked like they might have been someone's bodyguards though I couldn't figure out whose, some Orthodox Jews, a lot of Pumpkin Pie Martinis and a man who makes curtains, car covers and pajamas out of Crown Royal bags.

Now the landscapers are outside of my building with weed whackers and leaf blowers and I'm about to go outside and start hollering:

"IT'S ONLY NOON!! PEOPLE ARE SLEEPING!!!!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgivings and that none of you are forced to eat bad casseroles or dry turkey.



For your enjoyment, read last year's Thanksgiving post:



Last Year's Thanksgiving Post



and



Last Year's Guest List

Carrots and Horseradish, More Nasty-Assery

I have terrible childhood memories of being forced to eat this winner which was a favorite of my stepmother. Remember, the woman was evil. Only someone evil would cook this recipe and force a child to choke it down. She used to take this dish everywhere. Now, it was bad to begin with but she actually made it worse. As this was the early 80s, during the advent of the microwave, she fancied herself very chic and cosmopolitan by trying to cook everything in the microwave. Including this.

CARROT CASSEROLE

2 c. diced, cooked carrots (make even grosser by using canned)
3/4 c. mayonnaise (but really you should use Miracle Whip)
1/4 c. onion, grated
1/4 c. horseradish (because this goes great with carrots!)
Crushed Ritz crackers (of course, how could we leave those out?)

Combine all ingredients. Place in buttered 1-quart casserole and cover with crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Or you know, you could just zap it in the microwave until its unevenly cooked and even soggier, because that's great too.

Nasty Assed Recipe Week!

Readers, it's almost Thanksgiving. You know what that means around here. Nasty Assed Recipes. All week long I'll be tracking down the worst offenders and I want you to contribute as well. The rule is that any Nasty Assed Recipes you share must be real things that your family or you or someone you know really makes and eats. You may also give links to blogs that have nasty assed recipes on them. Tell us about them in the comments section. Every day this week I'll be posting my favorite Nasty-Assery as I find it. Unfortunately, I don't have any new recipes from my family because I wrote about them all last year. My family isn't really big on changing up the Thanksgiving menu, so it will be exactly the same as last year, given that someone doesn't go rogue on us and show up with some new combination of Jell-o, cream of mushroom soup or crushed Ritz crackers that we've never seen before.

In honor of the start of Nasty Assed recipe week we begin with an absolute horror encountered by a dear friend of mine at his in-law's house. My friend is a California boy all the way and he married a girl from the hot dish capital of the US, the midwest. To be specific she is from the part of the midwest that pronounces their o's like Sarah Palin. One year, my friend and his bride had Thanksgiving at one of her relative's homes and had a side dish that gave me nightmares just hearing about it. It contained olives and Jell-o. Do not ask me who thought those two things went together. Hmm, sweet and artificially fruity combined with salty, vinegary and bitter. Yum! Of course those two things go together. Both my friend and his wife were disgusted and of course they had to call me immediately to tell me all about it. They described the "salad" in detail and I was able to find a close facsimile of it on Cooks.com, which is where you can find every bad recipe. It's like a clearing house of white trash cooking over there. For some reason, and I can't figure out remotely why, this recipe is called "Under the Sea Salad." It contains no seafood. Maybe when it's all nicely congealed it looks like a seascape?? I think that's a big stretch though.

UNDER THE SEA SALAD

2 pkgs. lime Jello
3 1/2 c. hot water
1 sm. can crushed pineapple (which everyone knows goes great with olives)
1 sm. bottle Stuffed olives, sliced (why is Stuff capitalized?)
1 pkg. Philadelphia cream cheese (wonder what would happen if you used store brand?)
1/2 c. nuts (what kind??? what kind of nuts? Because that would make all the difference you know!)
1/2 c. salad dressing (I guess this means Miracle Whip, oh God help me)

Mix Jello in hot water. To half of the above liquid, add 1 can crushed pineapple and 1 small bottle stuffed olives. Put in pan in refrigerator to set. Let second half set also, then whip it and add cream cheese, nuts and salad dressing. Spread this over first layer. Cut in squares, serve on lettuce. (Watch your guests vomit like Linda Blair.)

Is anyone brave enough to actually make this? Has anyone ever had it or anything similar? Can anyone offer me a rationalization?

A Strongly Worded Message

A good friend of mine has a new beau. She was fixed up with this guy. We'll call him Steve. Steve was decent looking and outgoing. She liked that he was funny, sarcastic in a way that I hate and she likes, confident and that he really loved to go out and have a good time. He took her on several dates to nice places and they had a wonderful time whenever they went out. He talked a lot. They laughed together and he took charge of the situation when they were together. This is also something that she likes and I hate, but to each her own I guess.

Well inevitably they got tired of heavy petting and he took her back to his place one night where they became more intimate. It was in the dark. She noticed he had a tattoo on his stomach, but didn't think much of it.

The next morning she woke up in his arms. She snuggled up to him while he still slept and as she moved the sheets from his bare torso she saw something she didn't expect. Tattooed across Steve's stomach, in large Old English font were the words:

FUCK

THE

WORLD

On his body. Permanently. It looked like a gang tattoo which was unusual because Steve is a pretty clean cut guy who works in an office rather than a chop shop or something that you'd expect from someone with a tattoo like that. She woke him up immediately.

"What is this?" she demanded.

He explained that once, in college, he had lost a bet. That was it. He lost a bet. Somehow this caused him to permanently ink these words into his skin in what is at least a 48 point font, possibly larger.

To me, this is right up there with herpes. You need to prepare someone for this sort of thing if you're going to have sex with them. All I can say is thank God it wasn't me in this situation because I wouldn't have been so kind or accepting. And it's not so much that I'm anti-tattoo. I'm not a fan, but a lot of people have them and I would possibly tolerate something small and hidden or at least artistic and interesting. But "Fuck the World" on one's abdomen isn't subtle. That really sends a message and you have to wonder what sorts of bad character traits this implies. Or do you? I mean really, do you have to wonder? Isn't it pretty obvious? Hmmm. Anger, aggression, bitterness come to mind. Impulse control possibly.

I understand that people do stupid shit when they're young. He said this happened in college. I guarantee alcohol was involved, but still. Still. It's there forever now. This is a guy who didn't think of the future. How will he take his shirt off in public? What about around kids and grandkids one day? What if he goes to meet this girl's family and they have a pool party or go to the beach? Her family has a boat. Imagine the awkward moment when he takes off his shirt to get some sun in front of her parents. Any dad in his right mind would load the shotgun.

Then I thought, well, maybe he's making a statement. Maybe he's making a political statement about globalization or something. Maybe it was supposed to be "Fuck the World Bank" or "Fuck the World Trade Organization" but he ran out of skin and money. I don't know.

I don't even think there is a moral to this story. I just found it an interesting combination of horrifying and hilarious. I'm glad it wasn't me in this situation. My friend is far more forgiving than I am. Personally, I'd never be able to have sex with him. Imagine being on top and looking down and seeing nothing but that. It would be incredibly distracting and would be a definite deal breaker for me. But what the hell do I know? I'm judgmental.

What do you all think she should do?