F.U. 2016

Music is the soundtrack of our lives. You have heard that one, right? Haven’t we all? But here’s the thing about those trite statements you see on memes and kitten posters, there is a vein of truth running through them. The very reason they are so overused is because they are something most people can relate to.  

I came of age in the 1980’s, graduating high school in 1986 (the very best year of the 80’s) and musically it was great time. For starters, disco had died, which was great in and of itself, but then New Wave happened, along with metal hair bands, techno and an explosion of hip-hop. Michael Jackson released Thriller. MTV took to the air in 1981, Madonna hit like a bomb in 1983 and Purple Rain came out in 1984. Guns and Roses, Bon Jovi, U2, Live Aid. You youngsters jealous? You should be. It was totally bitchin' dude.

2016 has been hard for all music fans, but particularly brutal for those of us who can be transported back to our youth by the sounds of the 80’s. While David Bowie had already cemented his greatness by the 1980’s, he was an ever-present fixture at the top of the charts and playlists for that entire decade. Hearing “When Doves Cry” takes me straight back to the drive-in movie theatre, sitting on the roof my friend’s mom’s station wagon watching “Purple Rain.” Wham’s “Make It Big” reminds me of when my beloved aunt came to visit and I drove her around town blasting that cassette from the boom box in the back seat of my Toyota. She particularly liked “Credit Card Baby.”

I can sing all the words to every song on both those albums by heart. And when I do they evoke a certain feeling. It is nostalgia to be sure, but it is also a feeling of being transported. I feel so close to those days, those times, that I could reach out and touch them if I try hard enough. The 30 years that have passed all fade away and it seems like only yesterday, a mere moment between then and now.

It is to be expected that those who have journeyed life alongside us will pass, but at 53 years old? Or 57? I wasn’t expecting it now, that is for sure. But then 2016 seems to be a year of unexpected happenings. Shitty, unexpected happenings. And while I am NOT okay with any of it, I have had to face the realization that 2016 is one of those nasty-ass bitches who doesn’t give a shit what anyone else wants. She’s just in it to make a name for herself. She opened with David Bowie and before we could shove her unwanted ass out the door, she took George Michaels.

My only consolation is the fact that in 6 days, like it or not, the bitch will be gone.

All I have to say is that between now and then—if one fucking thing happens to Madonna, 2016 will NOT get out of here intact! You hear me 2016???? Not so much as a hangnail, NOT ONE FAKE, BLEACHED BLONDE HAIR ON HER HEAD, or I will take to Twitter and provoke Trump into launching a nuke and ending this whole fucking planet right now.

Fuck You 2016. Get out. You won’t be missed.

Uncommon Gifts

You guys, let's be honest. Shopping for your people for Christmas can sometimes, well, all the times, be a ridiculous pain in the ass. I ask them over and over again what they would like and their response? "I don't know." Seriously. My teenaged kids have said this to me. So, other than being a massive indication that they are coddled and spoiled, it makes it really difficult for me to get them a gift. When I got this catalog in the mail for a place called "Uncommon Goods" I thought I might be on to something. I don't get a lot of catalogs. Mostly because Amazon doesn't have one. But it arrived anyway and I figured I would give it the once over. Maybe it would have something cool and unique and come Christmas morning my people would be so surprised to see how clever and adept at gift giving I could be!

So, after a couple glasses of wine, I sat myself down to have a look. The catalog was so unbelievable that I proceeded to the website for confirmation of what I was seeing. Now, I am not criticizing Uncommon Goods, but I have to wonder how the hell they got my mailing address and decided to spend their hard earned money sending anything to me. 

A brief review for your holiday considerations.....


1. Wine and Beverage dispensing Tote

Looks great for PTA meetings, doesn't it? I would like this. It is what drew me in. Until I realized it was $130 dollars!! And the liner that you tote the wine in? It is only designed for one-time use, so you have to keep buying new liners or else you have at $130 purse with a stupid, useless spout. No thanks.

2.  So how about a Bracelet Flask?

For a mere $35 bucks you can wear this hideously ugly bracelet that contains exactly 1 shot of alcohol. The only person in the universe that would wear this damn thing is an alcoholic and what the hell good does ONE SHOT do them???!!?? None, that's what.

3.  Carry On Cocktail Kits

As you can tell, I started in the booze section of the catalog, of which there was no shortage. But really, it is so frustrating. These are carry-on-cocktail kits. But they contain no alcohol! WHAT THE HELL?????  The last thing I need on a plane is a fucking spoon. If the flight attendant needs to give me the booze, then I'm pretty sure I can get the whole drink from her. Plus, the "mixer" cant be more than 3 ounces or else you can't get it past security, so really...what are you paying $24 for? An Altoids tin with an airplane on it?

4.  Grow Cocktails

Now, this showed some real promise. Grow some cocktails for only $12? I have a garden space and can, if need be, force myself to be patient. But guess what? Yup, you got it....it doesn't actually grow cocktails! It grows herbs that you are supposed to use to make a cocktail with. Just like the goddamn grocery store sells,without the wait.

5. Elwood the Fucking Unicorn (explicative mine)

So, I gave up on the booze and moved on to the kids (which was the original point.) There is this cute mug and cereal bowl. It is painted with a unicorn, complete with horn and shit. Each piece is THIRY EIGHT FUCKING DOLLARS. Do you know what would happen if I sat my kids down to a breakfast of Lucky Charms (oh yeah, check the bowl people) and OJ with a set of crockery that cost $76 plus shipping???? I would lose my ever loving mind, that's what. The damn thing wouldn't last a week around here and then I would just be eternally pissed.

6. Tacos, Tacos, Tacos

I have a six month old niece and a 5 year old nephew to buy gifts for and under the baby and kids section I found these little gems. I can dress my niece up like a  $73 TACO DINNER! Complete with booties and a tortilla wrap blanket and hat! Then, I can start my nephew out on his future career as a food truck operator and he can SELL HIS LITTLE SISTER. What could possibly go wrong?

7.  Yoga Joes

Just look. They are the little green army men doing yoga poses. I have no words.

8.  On The Other Hand Clock

This might work for bonus daughter. She is late everywhere she goes, but having clock might help. Except that there is no possible way you can tell what the fuck time it is on this thing. So, she at least has a plausible excuse for being late.  

9.  Deep Sea Sand Art

I think this would be a great gift for my mother. Mostly because if she is feeling nostalgic for the 1970's she can look at it and remember a time when EVERY SINGLE PERSON had one. And I only need to drop $85 bucks for that. If I had known, I could have saved them all and gotten rich selling them on eBay.

10.  Walkie Chalkie

For only $15 you can get a stick. A stick that you attach chalk to (not included!) In case your special snowflake is too delicate to get his hands dirty touching the actual chalk. Or to get down on the ground.

11.  Hopscotch Rug

As a matter of fact, I think it might be better if your special snowflake didn't even go outside where they might actually get dirty. For $189 you can bring the hopscotch inside. Although, if your kids is too lazy to go outside, you might consider that they are probably too lazy to hop also.

12. Paperweights

This place has a fuck ton of paperweights. My niece plays softball, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a sixteen year old anywhere in this universe that knows what to do with a paperweight. Neither does anyone who uses an anvil or works at a forge. And this is just a small sample of the paperweight selection. 

And then we got into the stuff that was just random, weird or creepy. Or all of the above.

Goggles for skiing? Nope. These are for chopping onions. 

How about a doormat to creep out all the ladies coming to visit you? Nothing says "POTENTIAL INAPPROPRIATE GROPER INSIDE"  quite like this one.

These are  my personal favorite. For only $180 (each!) I can have this awesome yard art! My neighbors need to know what the fuck they are dealing with before they knock on my door!

How about these for your next baby shower gift? Pee Pee Tee Pees! A tent to put over a baby boy penis so you don't get peed on while changing his diaper. Really. That is what they are. I'm not even making it up.

Then I hit this one and it stopped me in my tracks

It is a sponge holder. One for your "Evil Sponge" and one for your "Good Sponge." (really...I am being totally honest. I did not make any of this up.)  

But I was confused. What is an evil sponge? Turns out it is the one you use for the sink and the drain and your "good " sponge is for the dishes and countertops.

But I ONLY HAVE ONE SPONGE!!!

 I have only ever had one sponge.

I am obviously fighting above my weight class with these people. But if you have more money then sense, this might be the place for you.

Get Over It

11 days ago, Donald Trump won the electoral college and as such is the President-Elect of the United States of America. Nearly instantly, almost anyone who didn’t vote for him was incensed, saddened, and/or frightened. And anyone who did vote for him took to social media with one message for them……”Get over it.”  

7 year and 10 months ago today, Obama was sworn in as the President of the United States for the first time. For 2863 days, as he has been President, I have listened to lies and garbage from people who did not vote for him and did not want him as President, many of them the same people who voted for Trump.

You want me to “get over it” when for the better part of the last 8 years you didn’t? Or couldn’t? Or just wouldn’t?

For the last 8 years

·      You spent 5 years questioning his place of birth, acting as though there was a question when it was well established fact. You supported a sheriff (mine) and a candidate (yours) who sent teams of people to Hawaii and claimed “they cannot believe what they are finding.”  What they found was nothing.

·      You defended the First Amendment rights of people who shot at photos of Obama or lynched and burned him in effigy, but deride the Trump protestors as whiny crybabies.

·      You complained that he has no experience in governing because he was “only” a one term senator and referred to him as a “community organizer.” Then you voted for someone who has no idea what he is doing and claimed that was a good thing.

·      You claimed Obama was not a Christian at all and was actually a secret Muslim, over and over and over again. In fact, you are still claiming it while voting for a man who has stated he has never asked for forgiveness of his sins because he doesn’t need forgiveness.

·      You screamed every minute of every day that Obama was going to take your guns, my guns, all the guns. No guns have been taken.

·      You said horrible things about his wife and children and marriage, going so far as to claim Michelle Obama is a man, while voting for someone with 5 kids from 3 different wives who cheated his way out of every marriage.

·      You claimed none of it had to do with race while people simultaneously fill twitter and facebook with tweets and memes using the word n****r. Then you vote for a candidate that was endorsed by the Neo-Nazis and the KKK.

·      You have wailed and gnashed your teeth the entire time because the country is “heading in the wrong direction!” And yet-

                The unemployment rate has been cut nearly in half from 9.3% to 4.9%

                 Violent crime has dropped 16% and homicides dropped 13%

                Jobs are up by 9.3 million and long term unemployed is down by 600k

                US crude production is up by 87% and petroleum imports are down by 62%

                Corporate profits are up by 166%, the S&P is up 139%, the Dow 106% and the

                Nasdaq up 222%

Then you told me to not to listen to anything Trump has said, because that doesn’t matter and he doesn’t mean that, but rather wait and see what he does.

·       He named a known and admitted alt-right white supremacist as is Chief Strategist

·      He either actually didn’t know about the hate crimes committed after the election and had to be told by Lesley Stahl or he lied about not knowing because he didn’t want to deal with it. I can’t decide which is worse.

·      He has refused to put his investments in a blind trust, instead insisting his kids will run his businesses.

·      He then appointed his kids to his transition team.

·      Then he took his daughter and son-in-law into a meeting with the Japanese PM. With no security clearance. And they are supposed to be running the “blind trust.”

·      He appointed for Attorney General, a man who was deemed too racist to be a judge in the 1980’s.

·      He has chosen a VP who believes gay people should change their sexual orientation through therapy and then complains when a theatre cast containing black and gay members try to send him a message about inclusion.

·      He jumped back into twitter by telling a complete lie about the letter from the editor of the NYT’s, claiming they “apologized” when no such thing happened.

·      He tweeted that the NYT’s was losing thousands of subscribers when they have actually increased subscribers at a rate 4 times higher than normal since the election.

·      He tweeted that there were “professional protestors” who were being “very unfair!” like some petulant 6-year-old.  Professional protestors do not exist and he was just perpetuating a ridiculous conspiracy theory that he either doesn’t care is wrong (scary) or doesn’t know is wrong (more scary.)

·      He falsely took credit (again on twitter) for keeping a Ford plant in Kentucky when, according to the President of Ford, they were never going to move, close or even reduce production at that plant. They were considering moving production of one car away, but ramping up production on others, but no jobs were ever in danger there. Because the union has a contract protecting workers until at least 2019.

·      He has appointed people to his transition team who want to register all Muslims and claim the internment of Japanese people as legal precedent.

And it has only been 11 days people. 11 days.  I have listened to your shit for 2863 days and I never said “you lost, get over it” despite the number of times I thought it. 

So, near as I can figure, I have 2852 days to say and do whatever I want in regard to Trump before I break even with you, let alone surpass you. So when you tell me to get over it, I have just one response for you….

NO

I will not listen as you try to shame me into doing something you would never do.

or

As you try to convince me that I need to respect the “office” if I don’t respect the man, even though you never did.

or

 When you say that I need to come together for “unity” when you refused for 8 years to even consider it.

or

When you say that “his success is my success” when you have denied every Obama success even happened.

I am not going to get over it

As a matter of fact

I haven’t even gotten started yet.