Beat It

Late last night I was outside in my yard in the dark doing something incredibly Mischievous and Secretive (taking out the trash) when I saw out of the corner of my eye a *something* that made *some kind of noise*. If this happened during the day it wouldn't have been so freaky, because then it's generally crazy out there and noisy and the traffic and the oy vey. But at night it's a different world out there and every dirtbag and scuzzbucket (hello, Police Academy 2) is walking the street talking to themselves and doing god knows what. Not saying that I live in a bad area, but it ain't no Little House on the Prairie. Pa didn't tag the building in the vacant lot next door, did he? Which I think would be great fun if you were walking down the street and you saw "Ingalls Family Represent!" spray painted on the overpass. And there are actually sneakers hanging from the telephone lines outside. Really, sneakers?! I thought you only saw that crap on Terribly Cliched 70's Sitcoms in the Inner City like Good Times or Welcome Back Kotter. I mean really, who throws sneakers over the line these days?! And I checked. They aren't lame-yet-wonderful vintage 70's kicks either, but those horrid white vinyl ones with velcro that your mom bought from Kmart in the 80's thinking you'd like them, only to find that only the "poor kids" wore those and now you want to die of embarrassment, thanks mom, you ruined my life! Yeah, THOSE kind of sneakers.

But I digress. The noise in the yard, right. So I'm thinking, a cat...dog...bunny... Nope. It was a freaking SKUNK. Really, a skunk?! I mean really, this isn't the area or place for a skunk to be all hanging out. And IS there a place for a skunk to hang out? A skunk habitat? That would be a gross place to work and who loves skunks so much that they'd want to hang out with them on the farm all day? Freaks. So I froze in place, because apparently in my mind they can't see you if you stand still. But he looked at me and I looked at him and I was holding my breath out of sheer scaredy-catness and did I mention he was about 3 feet from me? And what was running through my head was all those things you learned in elementary school "stop, drop and roll!", "just say no!", "don't be a fool, stay in school!"...and nothing was getting me through this Very Tragic Moment In My Life and there is no Lifetime movie about encountering evil skunks. So then I get mad, like who do you think YOU are skunk? And my fightin' defenses kick in and I'm thinking that the stripes on a skunk are pretty cool actually, and perhaps Cruella deVille was right.



Imagine my excitement to find this sucker~ it's a PIN that has PERFUME inside and I had the *same one* when I was a kid in the 80's and I thought I was fan-CEE. It smelled god awful, but think how cool you'd feel, wearing it on your Michael Jackson tee shirt (I still have it!), flipping it open and rubbing your finger over that little circle of concentrated evil.

You can buy it from JewelsByDesign. You'll smell like 6 bucks.

Road to Nowhere

About this time every stinking year the same thing happens, because I am a creature of habit and spontaneity has no place in my life and I am probably too uptight for my own good and so what if I happen to love a well laid-out (I said well laid) plan?! What happens, see, is the first few days of spring where it's actually warm and sunny and pleasant I get to making Big Summer Plans. I seem to forget how lazy I actually am and think that going places this summer is a Great Idea. It won't be until about June that I say oh riiight, like THAT'S going to happen-- what the HELL was I thinking, going on a family vacation, SURE. Sitting in a kiddie pool in the backyard full of mosquitos and drinking a rum and coke in a plastic tiki cup is JUST AS GOOD as going to Hawaii, you ingrateful jerks. Now swim!

These are the places I'm a-hankerin' to visit, full of pure kitsch goodness and who needs a tropical getaway anyway, when the 7 Wonders of the World Mini Golf awaits you (and I totally stole that from Overboard, the best Goldie Hawn movie ever). THESE kinds of pure americana are MY kind of vacation, so 50's, so wonderful! Don't get me wrong, Pennsylvania has some pretty kickin' tourist attractions with plenty of kitsch factor, but sometimes you just have to get the hell outta dodge. And why is that all the cool stuff is in "middle america" anyway? Like in all those square states that I can't ever remember the names of or all those long states that start with "I"? No fair, Missouri and Indiana, no fair. And have I ever mentioned that I LOVE MAKING LISTS?! And also, I can't promise that this won't be an ongoing list in the future. In fact, I promise this will be an ongoing list in the future, because I am obsessed with these kinds of places. Weird America, how I love you so.

1. The Corn Palace . A palace. Made of corn. The next time you find yourself in South Dakota (why you'd even be in SD, I don't know), go and check out the place. They change the murals on the outside of the building every year- murals made ENTIRELY OUT OF CORN. Awesome.

2. Giant Things Across the US. Such as :

World's largest badger in Wisconsin. That's gross, crawling out of the ground, Night of the Living Dead style...in Kimspeak that means freaking AWESOME.


Largest ketchup bottle. They spell it "catsup" which we ALL KNOW IS WRONG, ILLINOIS.


Largest pink flamingo. In Wisconsin. Seriously, Wisconsin?!


Places that I have a better chance of getting to this summer, close enough but far enough away:

1. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A very cute little town. My Old Man is getting his masters in history next year so good for him and his nerdiness, vintage clothing shops, old pubs and haunted stuff for me. Sweet.

2. Hershey Park in Hershey of course, dumbass. The town REALLY DOES smell like chocolate as you drive though it and the lamposts all have giant hershey kisses on top of them. Can't make this stuff up.



3. Hot Dog Johnny's in New Jersey. So it's not a vacation, but damn if they don't have the best fried hot dogs in the cutest little roadside stand- and hot dogs skeeve me out, so that's saying something. And food stands can be vacation-like, can they not? Like that Total Moron with the bleached-out hair on the Food Network, he has a show about food places across the US. My Great Ideas are always stolen by Total Morons, what gives?



Things I'll most likely end up doing this summer:

Going to the local car show, because it's 10 minutes away, going to the Garlic Fest and then the Greek Fest, because they are a couple miles away, swimming in my friend's pool, because she is 1 block away and sitting on my porch drinking cheap beer because it is 10 feet away. Wish you were here!