St. Patrick's Day Memoryyy

When I was growing up, my mother would make St. Patrick's day special for my brothers and I by creating elaborate "leprechaun scenarios." She would wake up very early and make mischief around the house, in the form of scattering pennies aka "gold," toppling over furniture, and just making a general mess. Then she'd blame it on the leprechauns. One year in particular comes to mind, however, because some might say that that year, my mother really went over the top with her scheme.

In addition to the usual scattering of pennies alllll over the house, she knocked over the kitchen table and chairs, along with some furniture in our bedrooms, and then spilled a pot of coffee in the kitchen, and I'm pretty sure she broke the pot as well...Point being, she truly trashed the house.

When we all got downstairs to have breakfast, she was fuming, and muttering things like, "I can't believe those damn leprechauns made such a damn mess..." and really just alternated profanities/leprechauns for awhile...we assume for dramatic effect.

This was the last year she did this, mainly because my brothers and I were at the age where we didn't believe in leprechauns, but also because her "pretending" and "make-believing" had the same effect on us that, say, genuine anger and frustration would have had. A morning that was supposed to be cheery and magical turned into a gloomy and annoying one...

We finally left for school, all of us in terrible moods, walking out the back door as my mother continued to pretend to be pissed off. Maybe there were some actual underlying feelings of resentment towards leprechauns. Or us. Or maybe she just didn't want to have to clean up all of that shit... She should be a professional actress.

I nearly killed a man...

One time I was driving my friend Steven to kroger because he was sick, and he had had a lot of cough syrup, so we figured it was best for him to not be behind the wheel of his 1989 Buick LeSabre that weighs 2 tons. This was around 9:30pm on a week night, and I was 100% sober, and driving the speed limit (45mph) driving down Granny White in Nashville. As I cruised through an intersection (obviously a green light), from out of nowhere, a man on a bicycle teetered into the middle of the intersection right in front of me without even looking where he was going. He was a crackhead.

I slammed on the brakes, but managed to clip the bike with the back of the LeSabre--the size of a small boat. Steven was shrieking the entire time and spilled a gallon of water in his lap. The man was thrown off of his bike--which was bent into a very odd shape--in the middle of the road, and I had to skid over into the other lane to stop the car and pull over to see if he was alright. He limped toward us with a very dazed, but thrilled expression, and I asked, "are you alright?" He said, "Oh yeah! I'm fine!" and limped off into the woods. Like I said, crackhead. I felt real bad. I messed up his bike, and scared the shit out of him, and poor sick steven, and gave myself a brief glimpse at the feeling of someone who is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Geeze. Then Steven immediately called his mother and screamed, "Erin hit a man!" There is a large green streak of paint on the side of the LeSabre. Other than that, it was unharmed.

Buick LeSabres are some of the most powerfully built automobiles in the United States of America.

Lap of Luxury

One time this summer, my friends and I wanted to properly celebrate our friend's birthday, so we left our cars at another friend's house, and shared a cab to some Nashville hotspots. The last bar we hit that night just happened to be approximately 2 feet from my house, so I just walked home at the end of the night, neglecting to think about my car, (which was still across town at a friend's house where I had left it) before I got completely hammered.

I awoke early the next morning to remember what had happened, and realized I'd need to call a cab to take me back to my car so that I could make it to work on time. I googled "Nashville cabs," and called the first number that came up. They said they'd be at my house in 25 minutes, so I got ready and stepped outside onto my front porch at the expected time, and my ride had indeed arrived.

I expected to see a yellow Crown Vic or a shitty, white Plymouth Voyager, but no.... sitting in front of my house was a black, Lincoln Town Car, circa 1999. I was already much too late to make other arrangements, so I got into the back seat and said to the driver--(who was wearing a suit, by the way)--

"Is this like a regular cab?" (Bear in mind that I was pretty much still drunk).

The driver smirked at me and said, "Well yes, except we actually speak English, and we don't have trouble finding addresses like 1606 Woodland St." (I'd prefer to not even get into the racial implications he made with his first comment, and all I can say about the latter is that my old house wasn't difficult to find; not in the least. Not. At. All).

The seats were worn, grayish naugahyde with a few cigarette burns in them, and there was smooth jazz playing and the temperature was set at a chilling 60 degrees for that sweltering, July morning. We rode to my friend's house without exchanging any more words--I was biting my lip the entire time, in an attempt to stifle my laughter.

When the man finally dropped me off, I was charged $20 for a 3 mile drive... I guess that's the price you pay for such a decadent lifestyle... And even though we were sticking out like a sore thumb--the one....Lincoln town car, cruising through the government housing off of 65/Rosa Parks Blvd.--I didn't mind in the slightest, because I spent my morning... in the lap of luxury...

Harsh Toke:

Tonight, my friend Kassidy and I went to the movies to see "No Strings Attached." I'm not sure why... I didn't eat dinner, and I figured some of my activities would inevitably lead to us getting the munchies, so I brought along a tub of hummus (Trader Joe's Cilantro & Jalapeno, to be exact ;) and a bag of tortilla chips. It was necessary to take these into the movie with us because I refuse to spend money on movie theatre snacks. IT'S HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

Neither one of us had purses, however, so I decided to shove all of it under my coat, which, made a gigantic bump. Surprisingly, it was a very natural bump, and when placed just right, I genuinely looked like a pregnant woman. We entered the theatre, Kassidy bought the tickets at the little automated machine, (seeing as I couldn't move my arms away from my stomach, or else my snacks would fall out from under my coat...) We both got a case of the giggles at this point, because, again--I looked pregnant--and we were attracting stares...presumably because my frame looked so small in comparison to my bulging midsection...

So we formulated a plan to get past the ticket taker without him asking if I was hiding anything in my coat....this involved Kassidy handing him both of the tickets, (so I wouldn't have to move my arms), and also--most importantly--shouting things throughout the lobby/theatre like,

"That's my WIFE you're talkin' to there!"

and,

"Hey! That's MYYY WIFE!"

or

"YOU CAN'T TALK TO MY WIFE LIKE THAT!"

and

"How DARE you INSINUATE that my WIFE has been DRINKING!"

When we turned around to finally walk up to the ticket taker, he had walked away and wasn't even paying any attention to us....That's never happened to me before--just being able to walk into a theatre unnoticed. Unfortunately, Kassidy had already spent her money on two...full-priced, general admission tickets, for one...awful....romantic comedy...with her PREGNANT WIFE. Lesson learned.

CASE CLOSED.

LiNdA RoNsTaDt

Now here's an artist who has recorded an album in pretty much every genre that's appropriate for a partially-white woman to record an album in... she's timeless, and talented, and if you wanna spend your entire day watching youtube videos on someone, I'd say she's a good choice. I'll tell you some other good choices some other time.

But for now, here's a couple of my favies that came from different phases in her career...I didn't point out the obvious stand-outs aka her Mexican music phase... and the Stone Poneys.... and her country phase....and when she did jazz standards in the 90's....or was it 80's...?

Our generation needs another Linda Ronstadt. Maybe Caitlin Rose has it covered for the "country-ish" Linda Ronstadt, but she's sorta in a category of her own...

This is one of my karaoke-go-to's....

Oh Cher....tries to steal the spotlight with her wild dancing and skanky gyrations--which I think are just fine, because Cher is also a very "respectable" entertainer....But it's pretty clear whose vocal superiority keeps the spotlight in this little duet ;)

Spend some time with the videos featuring the McGarrigle sisters....they wrote some of Linda's songs and they all do harmonies together and it's a really nice thing to listen to...if ya like choral arrangements ;)

I always forget I was in this:

a real "must-see!"

"He loves snails..."