File under "Things that could only happen to me"

My cute new little Honda Fit needed a quick wash, so I went in search of one of those tunnel kind of car washes where you pay with a debit card, drive in and park, and the wash mechanism thingy just travels over your car and then you drive out, clean and shiny.

I had just walked the dog out in wildernessland, so I had my usual weed-covered yoga pants and Angels spring training t-shirt on. But what the heck, I wasn't going to get out of the car.

Bwwwwaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaa.

I saw the "car wash" sign next to a Jiffy Lube. I pulled up. A guy waved me into the carwash tunnel, no debit card required, and started the wash. At the end, it didn't have the usual blast of air step to dry my car, so I was kinda bummed.

I pulled out and the guy pointed me to a parking spot. He had a basket of towels. Ah, hand dry. Then I realized I was going to have to go in and pay the jiffy lube cashier in my fatass yoga pants.

I went into the lobby and stood there while 50 people wondered what the hell I was doing in public with those ugly pants stretched over my large butt. And stood there.

After about 5 minutes, a guy finally came to the cashier stand. He was puzzled because my car wasn't on the list. "The Toyota?" he kept asking. I was getting more and more pissed because I just wanted to pay for my carwash and get out of there.

"Uh, that's ok, you can just go," he said. I held out money. He shook his head.

I suddenly realized something. You can't get a car wash at Jiffy Lube. Unless you get a lube. They didn't have any idea how to deal with someone who just boldly drove into their car wash and didn't want any other services. There was no price for it, no button on the cash register for it.

"That is the cheapest carwash I have ever gotten," I said, blushing madly and scampering my yoga pants butt back to my shiny clean car.

I am so special

I am posting this photo because the people who know me and love me will say "Yep, that is our Suebob," and the rest of you can see it and feel better about yourselves.

Here's the setup: I had finished doing dishes and was going to take the little sink strainer thing out and shake the collected schmutz out into the trash.

I used the foot pedal to open the trash, shook the strainer, and somehow managed to let the lid close again in that split second. Voila:



Something that could only happen to me, Queen Klutz. Yes, that is gook on the wall, too. Nice.

After I did that, I sat down and found a tick on my boob. AAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRGGGG! Remind me to go see the doc if I get a bullseye rash.

Updates:

Thank you so much for all the thoughts and prayers for my sis. You people are *snif* the best. I love you all.
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I found out that the camp in "Jesus Camp" closed after the release of the film due to bad publicity and vandalism at the camp site. Reading around the internet, I found that most evangelicals seemed to want to distance themselves from this type of camp and the activities promoted there. Most people just aren't that extreme in their beliefs, thank goodness.
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I spent a post wanking about my water aerobics instructor the other day, but I have to say that I am feeling and looking better since I began going 3x a week. I sleep better and have more energy and have even lost some weight. So yay for water aerobics. I guess I can put up with BC and her ilk. I will just work on my Bershon face some more.

Jesus Camp

I rented that movie "Jesus Camp" the other day. I thought it would be a look at those quirky fundamentalists and their kids. Instead, I felt like I had lifted up a rock and seen all the scary things squirming beneath.

I couldn't watch the whole thing. It felt like I was watching child abuse, and it got too uncomfortable for me to see.

It is a documentary about a camp in North Dakota where Pentacostals take their children to get indoctrinated to become little robots for religion, and they do it, as Malcolm X said "By any means necessary."

The camp is run by Becky, a woman with a perky hairdo and the same kind of glassy-eyed determination that one might see, say, on an al-Qaeda bomber. In fact, Becky mentions several times that the Muslims can train their kids to go out and blow themselves up, and what are Christian kids doing? Having fun and living like normal peaceful Americans? Why, they need to be willing to die for God, too! She seems envious of fanatical Muslims.

The children in the film are constantly manipulated by the adults in their lives. The adults choreograph dramas that spin into emotional frenzies where the children are told that they are terrible sinners that need to repent, and they do, sobbing until they are almost sick, their little faces twisted in agony.

The kids live in a world where facts aren't important because you can introduce an element of doubt into almost any fact. Beliefs are superior, because if you just believe strongly enough, no one can disprove you. It sounds strange, but in their world, it makes perfect sense.

It was all very, very disturbing to me. Disturbing to see what I consider child abuse practiced in the name of religion. Disturbing to see Jesus' teachings stood on their head and used to promote intolerance and insane behavior. Disturbing to see good little kids being used as pawns in a sick game of "My religion is better than your religion."

I also have a quibble with the filmmaker. I don't know why, but they felt it necessary to cut the Jesus camp scenes with scenes of a moderate radio host talking about the same subjects. It would go from these frenzies at the camp back to this radio host using warm vocal tones in a quiet, dark studio. I think she did it to give the audience some relief from the horror of the camp scenes, but it just ads a feel of bias against the camp people - "And now, here's what reasonable people think." She should have let the camp people hang themselves with their own words and actions and have left it at that.

Anyway, consider yourself warned.

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Please send out a prayer or good thought for my sister, Laura, who is in the ICU with pneumonia. She has another health issue that already makes it hard for her to breathe, so this is rough on her. Thank you.

The good the bad the ugly

My pool has 3 instructors for the water aerobics class.

First, there is Patty, the instructor every instructor wants to be. She is a grandma who is so cute and in such good shape that the pool cleaning guy makes a special stop to hang out and watch her in action (she teaches from outside the pool). All of the guys in the jacuzzi just sit there, mouths literally agape.

Patty rocks because she has good routines, she is funny as hell, and she isn't hung up on you following her every move. She just demonstrates and keeps things moving. I always get a great workout.

Then there is the Dumb Instructor. I don't know what her name is, but she makes every move so needlessly complicated that I never get a good workout because I am trying to figure out what she means by "Charlie Chaplin feet" or "eggbeater legs." The other day she had us hopping on one foot while swinging the other leg like a pendulum with "cross country arms" while we were traveling the length of the pool. Huh?

But the one who takes the cake is the Bitchy Cheerleader from Hell. With serious control issues. She is annoyingly perky and commanding. She not only has a routine, she wants you to be as committed to her routine as she is.

She can't STAND it if you deviate from her Grand Water Aerobics plan, and if you fail to follow her moves, she will point it out to the rest of the class in her loud, screechy Cheerleader from Hell voice.

The other day my friend Jules got busted for failing to hop when Bitchy Cheerleader was hopping. Jules said "But I have a knee injury." "Just don't hop as high," said BC. Jules just gave her the "You nuts, lady" look and went off to a corner of the pool.

She came down on me like a ton of bricks during her routine where we do four jumping jacks in one direction, then for some unknown reason, have to spin in the direction she tells us to, before we do 2 more jumping jacks, then spin some other direction. And on and on and on.

I can't tell left from right, so I quickly lost track of which direction I was supposed to be facing. No problem, right? It's all a big pool of water.

Wrong.

BC was incensed. "Your OTHER right!" she screamed. I looked blankly at her and kept facing the same direction. "Your OTHER right! Your OTHER right!" I said 'I'm really fine right here." She wildly gestured for me to spin. "I'm WATCHING you," she yelled.

"Cool," I said, with a steely reserve honed in the bowels of the newsroom by facing down mean old copy editors (Hi, Doug!).

From then on it was war. I was the teenager with an attitude and she was the Mom set on pointing out my every flaw. I channeled my best Bershon face and stuck it out, making rude gestures across the pool to Jules behind BC's back.

BC wasn't done, though.

There is a woman, Cora, who comes to class but doesn't participate. I think she has post-polio syndrome because she has one leg that is significantly weaker than the other. She uses the class time, because there are no lap swimmers, to do her own workout in a corner of the pool. She works like hell, too.

Of course this pisses BC off. Because everyone should want to do her workout, even though there is plenty of room in the pool.

At the end of class, she shouted at Cora to help with the lane lines. The first couple times Cora didn't hear her - she wears earplugs - and that only made BC madder.

When she finally got Cora's attention and Cora started pulling down the big, heavy lines, BC remarked to the people around her, "Good. Now maybe she will get some exercise."

Tell me, is it proper to punch your aerobics instructor? Because if BC is there next week, I might just consider it.

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Today's photo: What your view of an Angels game will be like if Angel Apologist sits in front of you:


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And in other news, give Des some linky love because she needs to bust her way into Google's top "Super Des" spot. Des is so cool that she deserves to be #1.

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Have you seen Linkateria lately? That video that is up is just so wrong that it is right.

Please visit

If you come and visit, I promise I will take you to coffee in the cafe at the back of this beautiful courtyard, my favorite place in town. If we are feeling really wild and crazy, we can get a fruit and cheese tray, too. Sitting there, you are protected from the wind but still get the sun, and red flowering trumpet vines climb the walls. It feels like being on vacation, even though it is just about a mile from my house.

So do consider stopping by. It is freeway close, as we like to say.


Last night Alicia and I went to see some comedy down by the harbor. Two locas out on the town. We got wildly drunk on too many gin and tonics (me) and glasses of wine (her). Too many gin and tonics for me was two, too much wine for her was a glass and a half. Man, we are some kind of party animals. We should be kicking it with Paris and Lindsay (do people say "kicking it" anymore? Not since 1993? I thought so).

But listen up fellas - here is the good part - we are extremely cheap dates. For twenty bucks we are loopy and looking for fun. You can call us - I wrote our phone numbers in the bathroom.

While we were waiting for dinner outside the crazy Greek place (with the dancing and the OPA-ing and the flaming cheese), I took this wild photo. Wild because I did not expect it to turn out anything like this. The snowstorm of dots must be fog droplets.



The harbor actually looked more like this (except less blurry). It was quite beautiful in the mist. The "night" setting on my sweet little Canon PowerShot A630 helped capture it. Stuff like this is why I pay more rent than the entire population of Fargo, ND combined.



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Have you ever made a decision and then gotten the exact advice you needed to hear after it was too late to do anything about it?

Tell me your tales.