I was telling my dear friend, Rosa Limon Sobrosa, about my little furry creature named Ruby dream and how Ruby was a rabbit but not a rabbit.

Turns out that Rosa had a rabbit named Ruby once long ago. Ruby was very sweet to Rosa, but not so much to Rosa’s boyfriend. Did you know that bunnies can scream? Apparently they can and they are just as territorial as cats. If they don’t like you, they will pee on your stuff. Also, bunnies can sometimes suffer from false pregnancies during which they will tear their own hair out to make a little bunny nest for their non-existent babies. Rudy did this once and Rosa came home to find that under the covers of her bed as a gory scene of ribbed out bunny hair. She thought her dog had made Ruby into lunch.

So Rosa loved her bunny and her boy. The bunny loved her Rosa but not the boy. The bunny peed on the boy’s clothes whenever she got the chance. The boy, being a human and all, regularly had to poop. Whenever he pooped at Rosa’s house, Ruby the bunny would follow him into the bathroom and then start to bunny scream at him while he was trying to take a crap. Ruby would yell and stomp her hind bunny legs while the poor boy was trying to drop the kids off at the pool. And when he was good and vulnerable, with briefs around his ankles and in mid-poop, Ruby would attack the boy. He often came away with Ruby inflicted scratches. Ruby’s reign of torment finally ceased when the boy screamed for Rosa while on the can so he could prove just how much the bunny had it in for him. Rosa loved them both, but in the end only the boy was giving Rosa hot sex, so the bunny had to go.

Or about to eat, or have ever considered eating, or you’ve eaten at all since you were born. Also you may not want to read this at work as the loud and hysterical laughter coming from your cube will let your boss in on the secret that you really don’t do anything productive at work.

So if you are an anorexic, unemployed layabout- go read this right now

hat tip to Brave Sir Robin

Lets101 Quizzes – Quizzes For Fun

And one more

Lets101 – Free Dating Network

This picture has nothing to do with TV or Ancient Greece. I just wanted an excuse to post a picture I took of Mayan penis sculpture.

What I learned while watching PBS

In ancient Athens, men were required to hold a pair of freshly cut and still bloody animal testes while speaking in court. That is the origin of the word “testify”.

We are poor. Not just kinda struggling from paycheck to paycheck, but either eat or pay rent poor.

I have enough education to understand all the societal reasons for poverty and how inevitable it is, but not enough education to really pull us out of it. So we get by as best we can from crisis to crisis with occasional help from well meaning charity things.

I have learned that when it comes to charity, sometimes it really is kindness and sometimes it is a way to dump unwanted stuff on the poor while creating a warm feeling of generosity for the givers. One Christmas I got a $200 gift card to Toys R Us that covered not just the Kid’s Christmas presents but his birthday presents in March too. Another year I got a pile of stained fabric scraps and a dirty winter coat that was 3 sizes too small for the Kid.

The Kid is in a weird spot at school. He is one of the only poor kids in the gifted program, so when it comes time for the annual feel good duties- we’re the top family on the list. This week the Kid came home with a $25 gift card to Safeway (super helpful) and a bag of canned goods.

The canned goods included a can of fruit cocktail, a can of corn, two boxes of mac and cheese and 8, yes 8 cans of green beans. I guess they can live in the cupboard with the remaining cans of refried beans we got from last years canned food dump. I think there are still 4 cans left. If the end times come- does anyone know a campfire recipe for a mixture of green beans and refried beans or should we try to maintain some level of civilization and eat them in separate courses?

I throw two big parties every year. One is my birthday, which after years of having at my house (where I- as birthday girl had to spend way too much time cooking and cleaning) is now held at a karaoke bar so that my friends can buy me copious amounts of alcohol and dedicate silly songs in my honor. The other is Thanksgiving.

I really want to do Thanksgiving this year, and I am going to give it my best shot though I haven’t been my normal social self lately (I blame drugs!). Last year there were more than 17 people in my tiny apartment. People were sprawled on the floor indulging in yumminess and booze. This year there may not be as many people, but I am whipping out my chef’s knife and the section of my recipe binder (The Red Hot Mama’s Book of Good Eats) labeled “Thanksgiving- The Good”. There is also a section labeled “Thanksgiving – The Bad and The Ugly” to remind me of what recipes have gone horribly bad- like the butternut squash soup where the squash tried to reconstitute itself in the manner of the evil liquid metal robot in Terminator 2 or 3 (I can’t remember which).

So here is the list of standards that I use:

Turkey cooked in a liter of wine and butter (I usually do a 22- 24 pounder)

Cornbread stuffing with sausage and walnuts

Mashed potatoes with roast garlic and dill

Smokey green beans almondine

Cranberry sauce with apricots and ginger

Whipped sweet potatoes

Spinach and pear salad with raspberry vinaigrette

And this year- deviled eggs. I am always a little embarrassed at my love of deviled eggs, they seem so retro 50’s housewife and not at all gourmet. But after attending a barbecue this summer where I watched a bunch of hipster musicians suck down deviled eggs like their grungy predecessors sucked down heroine, I am no longer ashamed to serve them to girls with asymmetric hair cuts and boys in tiny girl pants.

I also think I am going to do grilled portabellos for the vegans main dish this year. They are terribly easy and can get popped into the broiler while the turkey is resting.

We eat like civilized people- dinner is generally 7 or 8 pm. None of this eating at 2 in the afternoon for us. And since I don’t generally make desserts, that I what my guests bring. Thanksgiving goes on until the wee hours of the morning with much wine and music and good friends.

So friends out there too far away to join us here- what are you doing for Carb-fest 07?

I am writing this here because 1) I like to overshare and 2) I want to have it written down somewhere so that I don’t forget it later.

The last couple of nights I’ve been having these wild, cinematic dreams. Last night’s was by far the weirdest and worst. It was so bad that I woke myself up from it several times only to go right back to it when I fell back to sleep. It also woke the Kid up because apparently I was yelling out in my sleep.

It started off with the beginning of a dream I’ve had a couple of times. I am back in high school and I am having a party in my bedroom closet, only my closet is a huge walk-in. Everybody is dressed fancy and prom like and leaning up against the clothes hanging on the walls. All of a sudden some popular girl (which is weird cause I was a popular girl and never afraid of losing status) starts going though my giant shoe collection. She pulls them out and keeps saying “they’re the right brand but they’re ugly”. I get pissed off “I don’t see you wearing those brands of shoes”.

Then everyone is gone and I am in the closet holding a tiny “rabbit” only the rabbit looks more like a hamster. I name her Ruby and she is the sweetest, softest thing I have ever held in my life. I don’t ever want to put her down, but I have some construction work that needs to be done on the closet. Some giant famous basketball player in a basketball uniform(I don’t know which one) agrees to do the work for me, he just needs me to help him move the lumber for the job into the closet. Ruby is terrified that I’ll put her down. Her soft furry body won’t stop shaking from fright. I decide to put her in the bathroom sink because I think the basin will hold her for the few seconds I need to move stuff. But she escapes and scurries into a crack in the wall. When I come back for her, she is still shaking and scared and I can’t make her stop.

(this is where I first woke up- or actually woke myself up. I was freaking out about not being able to fix Ruby and my conscious brain dragged me to awakeness)

Next, it is winter and I come out of the closet into a neighborhood much like where I grew up. It has mountains and dangerous hairpin turns for roads. There is a boy there who in real life has the exact same first, middle and last name as my brother minus one letter. (The entire time we were in school people confused the two of them but they were so different I didn’t understand how they could be so stupid over one letter.) I have on ice skates, but I haven’t skated since I was a little kid. It’s just like riding a bike though and very shortly I am doing complicated twirls and turns on the ice.

Then it’s summer and I am marching by a lake carrying a flag. The boy with the name like my brother walks towards me and as I go to hug him hello and give him a kiss on the cheek, he pushes me away. It’s very important that the flag I am carrying stay straight up. The flag is some nautical warning to the boats on the lake.

I wake myself up again, this time pissed because WTF was up with that boy. Damn I was just trying to be friends.

When I fall back to sleep I am at my family’s house. All my cousins are there (Hi Wonder!) and so is the Kid. I am getting ready to take the Kid to the airport so he can make his annual visit to Atlanta. He’s flown alone plenty of times and I’m not worried. I drop him off at the airport and then park a little ways away so I can watch his plane take off. I sit on the side of a hill in the sunshine and all of a sudden everyone from the airport starts running towards me. Something has gone horribly wrong. I am looking for the Kid, but he doesn’t come. I wait for a very long time after everyone else has left and suddenly he walks up behind me. He is coming from the wrong direction.

I can tell that something is wrong, but he won’t talk to me. I go through his backpack and start pulling out papers and drawings. There is a cartoon in his bag that teaches kids how to be terrorists and suicide bombers and why that is a good thing. There is also a sheet of paper, the newsprint type with the big lines that little kids first use to learn to write their letters. In the Kid’s handwriting is a note about how he is becoming a suicide bomber. It’s his suicide note. But underneath his writing I can see the carelessly erased letters that he was made to copy to write the letter. I beg him to talk to me. When he doesn’t I call the FBI to tell them that I know what happened at th airport and that they should be looking for someone who is turning Unaccompanied Minors (airline speak for kids flying alone) into suicide bombers and terrorists. The operator on the phone seems bored with my call and says they already know.

I go back to trying to make the Kid talk to me, but he won’t. I am terrified that I can’t change his mind if he won’t talk to me.

At this point , the kid wakes me up because I was screaming out loud. He promises me he’s not a terrorist, and I tell him that the worst part was that he just wouldn’t talk to me.

So now you know, I am a complete freak. Next time I might tell you how I once sold my soul to the devil in a dream, and the devil was Nicholas Cage.