PunkKittyDiddy

Paranormal Parenting Poll

To my fellow sci fi and horror fans: put on your thinking caps!  I'm writing up an article about how various stages of childhood are portrayed in both sci fi and horror (and on both the small screen and big screen), and I need help coming up with particularly iconic and memorable examples.

For pregnancy and birth (real or metaphorical), I've thought of the obvious examples.  "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."  "Alien."  "Village of the Damned."  "Demon Seed."  Even cylon re-birth in "Battlestar Galactica."  Let's not forget the "Home" episode of "The X-Files" (though I'd like to forget it).

Where actual babies are concerned, off the top of my head, I've come up with, "Rosemary's Baby," "The Brood," "Basket Case," "It's Alive," "Grace," and "Dawn of the Dead."  (No, the ugly unseen baby from that 'Seinfeld' episode doesn't count.)

Toddlers?  I'm blanking here.  Maybe because my daily life is so consumed with tending to one of these, her fictional counterparts seem unremarkable in comparison.  All I can think of is Chuckie from "Child's Play."  (And that's only because he's toddler-sized.  I do get that it's a doll inhabited by the spirit of an adult psycho killer.)  There's gotta be more examples in this grouping?

Now, there's a bazillion examples of creepy kids.  "The Omen."  "The Bad Seed."  Danny and those Grady twins from "The Shining."  "Children of the Corn."  "The Exorcist."  The banjo-playing boy from "Deliverance."  (The latter is not horror, you say?  Is TOO, I counter!)  So I don't need much help rounding out that particular developmental phase. 

What about scary teenagers?  (And I mean scary in the supernatural sense, not scary in their usual way.)  I can think of "Carrie," "The Lost Boys," "The Craft" and "Ginger Snaps."  Could maybe even make an argument for Luke rebelling against Darth Vader as a sort of delayed teenage rebellion thing. 

Can y'all help me round out the list?  You can respond here at Typepad, or on Facebook.

Thanks!

Grueling Grog Is Nemesis Of Swine Flu (And BFF Of Gag Reflex?)

Quite amused by Carlo Ancelotti's generations-old cure for the flu - which involves drinking hot milk and red wine.  Um....together.

How does that work, exactly?  Are you so busy vomiting that you hardly notice the coughing and congestion?

Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 - 1.5 teaspoons fresh grated lemon peel (depending on how lemon-y you like it)
1 cup flour

1. In large mixing bowl, mix butter, cream cheese and sugar until creamy.  Then add vanilla and lemon peel.  Gradually add the flour.
2. Drop dough by the spoonful (approx. 2" apart) onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes (edges of cookies should be golden).
4. Scoff them all down in one go, then go sit on the couch and whine about how your skinny jeans don't fit like they used to.

The End.

Mark-down Mama Rides Again

I'm not a label whore.  I can appreciate a well-constructed and/or artistically-rendered garment, and there are certain designers whose handiwork I quite consistently admire, but......I am never soooooo overwhelmed by the prospect of a label that I will pay any price to attain it. 

However, I am a bargain whore. 

When I can attain a label for pennies on the dollar, that generates a pretty good buzz.  At the risk of sounding like a compensated spokes-shopper (I wish), thank god for the likes of Marshall's and Ross and T.J. Maxx.  They often even do me the courtesy of leaving the original retailer's labels on the garments, which allows me that special moment when my eyeballs roll back into their sockets as I shudder in ecstasy over the price I'm actually paying for said item.   This doesn't freak out the Russian grannies from a few aisles over as much as you might expect.  Discount shopping isn't for pansies.  They know this.

But I digress.

Part of the thrill of this sort of treasure hunt includes the after-gloat.  Here's an example of a recent haul from Marshall's.

 Item #1:  An olive/beige-y BCBG tunic tank which didn't look like much on the hanger, but turned out to be particularly flattering in the mirror.  Original price:  $78.00.  Marshall's sale price:  $5.00.

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. 

Item #2:  An orange Michael Kors tunic with freakin' groovy stud detail.  Original price:  $79.50.  Marshall's sale price:  $5.00, again.

Suh-weet.  (P.S.:  Suck it, retailers!)

At a time when I would otherwise feel guilty about indulging in any form of retail therapy, it's nice to still be able to get a buzz on for the price of a couple of cups of designer coffee.

Yeeeeeeehaw.

Vindication!

Many have laughed at my shark phobia.  Many have said to me, "It's ludicrous that you live in Southern California, and refuse to wade into that blue, sparkling, refreshing ocean water any further than thigh deep, which even then you can never fully enjoy because you are secretly replaying those Shark Week video footage snippets in your head..... the ones in which the baritone voice-over guy says, "Joe Smith was enjoying an idyllic day at the beach with his family, and was wading no more than thigh-deep when.............." as the foreboding music swells.................."

OK, no one has actually said that to me verbatim, but it covers the gist of their meaning.

And then a bunch of great whites show up this past Labor Day Weekend in Cape Cod, and they have to close the beaches.

Who's laughing now?  If I had a shrink, he or she probably would be.  But that doesn't mean I don't feel vindicated by such stories.

Very Special Company Pork Chop Recipe - For the Wrongly Convicted Chef On the Go......

Out of all domestic-related duties, cooking is my favorite by a mile.  And lately, for whatever reason, I've been on a crock pot bender.  Actually, it's a bit stupid to write "for whatever reason."  It might have something to do with the fact that I found a cookbook tucked away on the shelves of Marshall's........one which contains over 500 crock pot recipes.  Frankly, I like the idea of getting all the hard cooking work over with during the part of the day when I actually still have a modicum of energy to expend.  Yeah.  Those are not-exactly-mysterious contributing factors to the sudden crock pot phase I seem to be going through.  Even though crock pot cooking seems a bit old-school and anti-gourmet.   

Funny enough, this culinary development falls on the heels of a failed raw food bender.  I bought some raw food recipe books a few weeks ago.  Alas, most of the recipes call for exotic ingredients that you have to (a) Google for identification purposes, and then (b) drive to five different specialty health food grocery stores to find (writes the broad who once did exactly that after purchasing the Gillian McKeith cookbook.......hope, or idiocy, springs eternal).  Plus spending an hour peeling zucchini into spiral spaghetti-like strips in order to create veggie "pasta" isn't my idea of a good time.  Still, it's ironic that I go from swearing to myself a few short weeks ago that from hereon out, I shall only eat raw, organic, un-cooked veggie goodness (I could practically envision the shiny golden aura of glowing good health that would subsequently follow me wherever I went), to a phase in which I'm letting stuff marinate in a pot for 7 or 8 hours at a stretch.  But I digress.

Yesterday it was split pea soup.  Today it's chicken with Italian sausage (and let me tell you, those sausages and onions are smelling bitchin' right now.....).  Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a really wrong, wrong, wrong sounding recipe entitled, "Company Slow Cooker Pork Chops."   I mean "wrong" in the decadent sense of the word.....given that some of the key ingredients include sour cream and cream cheese.  And I'm assuming THEY mean "Company" in the outdated 50's sense of the word - when you invited "company" over to your house instead of "guests." But hey, maybe they mean "Company" as in "The Company" as in "bad guys featured in an espionage/cyber-hacker or crime drama thriller" sense of the word (like on "Prison Break").  Maybe if I make this recipe, a small squadron of evil-mongering corporate stooges, or crime ring henchmen, or government shadow figures, will show up on our doorstep, and then force me to hack into a bank's computer system and siphon some money out for nefarious purposes.  They might even want me to assassinate someone.  That's a lot of pressure when you just want to make some pork chops.  (But secretly I would find it all more than a little bit rad.) 

On the other hand, that probably won't happen.  I'm guessing the more likely of sinister outcomes here is that I'll gain a few pounds thanks to the sour cream and cream cheese.

Whatever.  I'm up for anything.

What To Buy The Rich Hippie Wiccan Who Has Everything.....

Today, via snail mail, I received a catalog for a certain "Magick, Myth & Fantasy" product collection.  What on earth have I recently purchased (or done) that would flag me as a person of interest to the manufacturers of protective amulets?  Huh?  Nor do I think it's totally flattering that someone figured I might be just the sort of person who is in the market for a "pirate vixen dress and petticoat" or a "Absinthe Faerie" resin sculpture........... 

Don't even even get me started on the "Totally Nude Aerobics" and "Totally Nude Yoga & Tai Chi" exercise DVDs being offered up on page 40.  (These probably should be sold on the same page as the skin-tight gold and silver lamé leggings meant to "fit like a second skin" from page 25....but they aren't.) 

It's good that they're selling crystal balls, though.  You can attempt to peer into the future, and maybe realize that your financial picture is bleak in no small part for having squandered your money on stuff like crystal balls, and the not-inexpensive green garnet ring on page 10 that promises to bring financial prosperity to its wearer.  Oh, the mystical irony of it all.

I'm not really one to judge.  I'm as susceptible to stupid and pointless impulse purchases as the next person.  If money were no object, I might actually be buying the jewelry emblazoned with the Edgar Allan Poe and Tolkien quotes.  The coffin-shaped sunglasses which are hawked as "the last word in postmortem moderne" are kinda nifty, too.  And, as it were, I still had to (seriously) talk myself out of the floor-length reversible crimson/purple velvet cape.  Me, the broke one who lives in the mostly sweltering San Fernando Valley.  WTF is wrong with me?  Yeah, of course, I would like to spend my days skulking around in the shadows and emerging occasionally to remove my hood and issue a dire warning about the oncoming Orc army or Imperial forces, but.....I've got this damn stinking sink full of dirty dishes to contend with.  And some other lame stuff to do.

But someday, when I finally have more money than sense (the bar is not set particularly high here on either measure), that full-length velvet "Lady Moonbeam" gown and matching capelet shall be MINE............

Attack of the Man-Eating Pony

That very first pony ride is one of those universally beloved rites of childhood.

Unless you're dealing with carnivorous ponies, it turns out.

Yesterday we took Z. to a petting zoo that offers pony rides.  Z. went on a pony ride.  Z. understandably reached the conclusion that pony rides are awesome.  She wanted to go AGAIN.  Immediately.  We postponed putting her right back on another pony because we wanted her to hang out with the pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, cow and so forth, and take in the full petting zoo experience. 

Besides, the pony rides cost extra. 

Ah, but Z. was still drawn to the cute ponies, and kept gravitating in their general direction.  She was petting the nose of one pony in particular when it suddenly grabbed her thumb and chomped down pretty hard.  It didn't seem to want to let go, either.

After it was extracted from the mouth of the carnivorous equine, Z.'s thumb was now cut and bleeding.  It was a surprising amount of blood for a pony-inflicted wound. 

In approaching the staff about this, we were just looking for a sink and some soap where we could wash the cut.  We know accidents happen, and animals bite sometimes.  We didn't approach the proprietor in an angry manner, an accusing manner or a highly litigious manner in which we threatened to take them for everything, including their last bale of hay and their very last flea on their very last chicken.  We weren't out for blood (unlike a certain pony).  We just asked if there was someplace where we could wash the bite. 

But the proprietor (after handing us a solitary wet wipe) says to us, in an incredulous manner, "What was her hand doing near the pony's mouth?"

She was so incredulous, I temporarily forgot about the sign out front that had lured us there in the first place.  The big ol' honkin' sign emblazoned with the words, "PETTING ZOO."  (Key word: petting.  Petting.  P-E-T-T-I-N-G).  We explained that the pony had taken a nip, and we know these things happen.  Now, I've seen the overzealous parents who want to behead anyone even indirectly responsible for a slight affront to their child.  We weren't being those parents.  We were being damn cool about the whole thing, I gotta say.  Whereas the proprietor was still relatively indignant.  We felt like we'd done something wrong.

We had another ticket for a pony ride, and frankly I wanted Z. to use it.  Because of all the childhood phobias she could possibly suffer from, I wasn't about to have her traumatized by ponies.  Clowns, sure.  Broccoli or creepy ice-cream-van-driving men, understandable.  But ponies?  Uh-uh.  No way.  Besides, there's that whole cliche about getting back on the horse that throws (or attempts to eat) you.  We were gonna nip this phobia in the bud.

With a little trepidation, she got back on another pony.  And she had a pretty good time.  Then the ride ended, and she got off the pony, and started crying some more about the other pony that tried to eat her.  I wanted to get her cut properly cleaned and put some ointment on it, anyway.  It seemed like a good time to leave.

On the drive home, I grew pretty indignant about how the proprietor was indignant about the incident.  And I had one of those "Hey, wait a minute...." dawning realizations.  Actually, several:

1. When we paid for admission to the place, they were eager to sell us those styrofoam cups filled with food for the animals.  And I guess we had this crazy notion that we ought to aim the food in the general direction of the animals' mouths.  Sure, we're city folk.  We don't deal with livestock on a daily basis.  Maybe farm animals operate differently than the domestic cat-and-dog kind we're familiar with.  Even so. Also, just a thought - if you don't want kids putting their hands near animals' mouths, maybe it's not such a good idea to sell food for the animals, and encourage the kids to, uh, feed them.
2. Z. wasn't poking, or prodding, or chasing, or shrieking at the pony.  We've raised her to be a good friend to animals.
3. For a place that caters to kids, it's a little strange that they didn't have a first aid kit on hand - or at least some band-aids and antibacterial ointment.  Or, you know.....a sink and some soap.
4. Would it have killed the proprietor to show a wee bit of sympathy?  Even if she felt we were in the wrong by letting Z. pet the pony at the (ahem) PETTING ZOO, it would have been nice for the lady to be....well....nicer.  "Say, is that bleeding wound OK now?  Poor thing," would have gone a long way toward mending fences.

The worst part is that Z. now seems slightly obsessed with the concept of man-eating ponies. She wanted to talk about them for the rest of the day yesterday - despite our attempts to make light of it.  When I put her to bed last night, she claimed she wasn't tired, and I tried to teach her about counting sheep. 

She wanted to know if the sheep were going to eat her. 

So - I now have on my hands a child who is fine with werewolves and vampires, but who is scared of ponies.

Go figure.

Adventures in Netflixing: "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans"

So tonight I wound up watching a portion of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans with my almost three-year-old daughter. 

Not on purpose, exactly.  It was just one of those moments of weakness that pops up along the path toward parental enlightenment (or maybe it's the path toward dog-tired submission.....I get those two states of being confused sometimes).  At any rate, it was one of those times when I have already said (for the fiftieth, or the seventieth, or the hundredth time):  "How many more times am I going to have to tell you to get back in bed?!!"

This eventually becomes a rhetorical question.  The Toddler has already done the math.  She likes her odds.  She knows I can't bring myself to say, "How many more times am I going to have to tell you to get back in bed?" for the fifty-first (or seventy-first, or one hundred and first) time.

So she walks into the living room right in the middle of a vampire versus lycan smackdown.  Her eyes get HUGE.  Not in a terrified way.  More like in a "You have been holding out on me......this is WAY better than Elmo!" way. 

And she asks, "What is this?"

I could have, and probably should have, told her, "I'm not going to tell you again......"

Instead I say, "It's werewolves versus vampires.  Level with me.  Which do you think is cooler?"

She pauses, watches a few more moments of footage, and appears to actually consider her response.  After a minute, she says, "Werewolves."

I ask her:  "Why?"  (Because kids say the damnest things.  It's true.)

And she says:  "Because the wolves go:  GARRRRRRRRGH!"

There are loads of debates going on in assorted horror fan chat rooms and message boards right now this very second, in which this exact same topic is being dissected by completely grown adults.........

......and I can assure you that, ultimately, her answer is no less legit than anything a person ten times her age can offer up.

True story.

R.I.P. Gigi

She was a bit of a loose cannon, sure.  Those extra thumbs generally led to extra trouble. Opening and closing the kitchen cupboards - one of which she commandeered and converted to her Top Secret Clubhouse Within Which All Sorts of Mysterious Cat Plans Were Hatched.  I'm pretty sure if I go digging around in the back of that cupboard, I will find blueprints with detailed instructions on how to infiltrate the kitty biscuit stash, and probably schematics that would have eventually somehow led to her dropping from the ceiling a la Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible and ambushing the dog while he slept on the living room rug.........they had a bit of a Spy vs. Spy, friendly rivalry going on.  (I can say "friendly" because he's now moping around the house, looking quite forlorn.)

Gigi also liked to channel Maria Callas.  Especially in the dead of night, when I was least likely to appreciate a spot of Verdi.

But damn it....I loved that fuzzy nutjob.

Today really, really sucks, y'all.