Children are Maggots.

When I first started dating Mr. Floozy oh so long ago in that beautiful era of grunge and tucked-in polo shirts, we had our first very serious conversation on the first date. It was about musicals. I loved musicals and Mr. Floozy abhorred them. I was in shock. What sort of heartless bastard hated musicals!? They're kicky and fun and full of improbable dance numbers and men who in real life are gay but who pretend to be straight for just a few minutes to win the love of the singing babe. And it all happens on stage for everyone to see. What is there not to love? Well, lots of things, according to Mr. Floozy. Maybe it has something to do with him being a talented songwriter and pianist.

Actually, Mr. Floozy likes two musical -- Chess and The Music Man. Those are the only two exceptions. When I want to make my husband cry, I belt out show tunes. It is my best defense mechanism. 

Over the years, my love for musicals has faded. They really did begin to sound tinny and predictable to me, too. There will always be a part of me that loves musicals. Even the truly horrible ones like The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. Just kidding. I always hated Cats. 

When we were planning our trip to London, I mentioned that there was one musical that I was dying to see -- Matilda -- based on the classic book by Roald Dahl, and music and lyrics by Tim Minchin. TIM MINCHIN. Tim Minchin -- Australian comedian slash musician -- is one of my favorite entertainers. His song 'Prejudice' is a family fave because of all the 'gingers' that live in the Floozy household. So, Mr. Floozy said, OKAY, I will go to a musical with you because I love you and really don't' want you to start singing showtunes in a screechy Bernadette Peters voice until you get your way. I didn't buy tickets beforehand because we wouldn't know Mr. Floozy's work schedule until we were in London for a few days. (Mr. Floozy was there for work and I was there for fun.) As soon as we were sure that he had Friday night off, I walked around London until I serendipitously found a discount theatre ticket booth. The nice lady told me that Matilda was sold out, but mollified me by calling the box office 'just in case.' And guess what. We got tickets. Two tickets were miraculously available. I took it as a sign that I should embrace the cheesiness of musicals once again in my life.

And Matilda was great! So funny. The man who played Trunchbull was hysterical. Lookie.

They were selling t-shirts out by the snack bar that read, 'Children are Maggots.' At some point in the play, it is revealed that the children's school's motto is Bambinatum est Maggitum, which is fake-funny Latin for 'Children are Maggots.' (Even though I used to be a Latin major, my Latin is shot, so I asked my cool bro-in-law who is a Classics professor to confirm that it was fake-funny Latin and not real Latin.) 

It was too stitchable of a phrase to resist. This would be cute in a baby's nursery, don't you think?

BAMBINATUM
EST
MAGGITUM
Children are maggots.

 

Mr. Floozy enjoyed Matilda as well, but made sure that I knew that he still did not approve of musicals in general. 

I am thinking of subjecting him to another musical soon. What are your recommendations? Don't say Cats.

Favreau Cankles, Favrankles

A day late and hundreds of pounds later -- that's British pounds, not flab pounds -- I am home! For awhile there, Mr. Floozy and I didn't think that Delta was ever going to let us go home. We boarded our airplane late Sunday morning and everything was going peachily until the captain announced that we were going to turn around and fly back to London. Something was wrong with the pressurization, which is code for, 'something is wrong with the plane and neener neener we aren't going to tell you.' We were already two hours into the flight and over the ocean when this happened. But, it wasn't so simple as flying back and landing. No. First they had to dump the plane's fuel over the ocean because the plane was too heavy to land. So, they dumped fuel over the ocean. We watched it from our window. How is this environmentally acceptable? It was a shiz-ton of fuel. Hey, ocean. Ya thirsty?

When we were back over London, we continued to fly in a holding pattern for another hour because there was still too much fuel to land. I was hoping that they'd dump the large, loud-snoring, weird guy in front of us. But no. I guess that is against their policy.

We landed. And one hour after that we were on another plane. Then we were stuck on the tarmac for another few hours while several other things went wrong -- the new pilots were stuck in traffic, the wrong paper forms were signed, and so forth and so on. Seventeen hours later we landed in Minneapolis, tired and ready to crash in the pee-smelly hotel the airline comped for us. By that time, my body had had it. My edema was so bad that my feet had swollen to the size of shoe boxes and my cankles looked like Jon Favreau's neck. 

Cankles

Jon Favreau's neck

Can you see the resemblance?

The next morning we went back to the airport and got on a non-cursed flight back home. 

And here I am now complaining after watching a tear-punching segment on CNN of the aftermath of the Midwest tornadoes.

Look. I know that my life isn't hard. The very fact that I thought that this plane ride was grueling actually proves that my life isn't hard. But this trip cost mucho poundso. Delta is a service industry. If I am at a restaurant and get a steak that moos or is as hard as a hockey puck, I send it back to the kitchen. On the Delta website I submitted a complaint, detailing the indignities and inconveniences in an overly-written manner.  'We went an entire ten hours without any sort of food. Not even a bag of peanuts. And when we finally were served food, it was a horrible-feet-tasting sandwich that everyone gagged down because they were so hungry.' I am expecting the Hyperbole Police to show up at my door any minute.

An experience like this makes me wonder if the airlines are more of a federalized operation than a service industry. Oh crap! I am thinking scary libertarian/republican thoughts! I am going to stop now before my sad liberal brain explodes.

I promise that the next blog post I write won't be a huge litany of complaints. (Maybe. There will definitely be a few complaints.) I will tell you all about my trip to Europe. Especially London. London was amazing. I won't be complaining (or whinging, as they say in England) about that part of the trip. The skies were always overcast! There were people speaking in British accents everywhere! And the food and theatre were brilliant. Brilliant I say! 

(A special thank you to my facebook friend Paul, for coining the word 'favrankles.')

International Lampoon Floozy Vacation

Sorry for a week of no blogging. I was super busy getting ready for EUROPE. I will be visiting London, Paris, Brussels, and Stockholm. I won't be blogging this week either, so go read a book or something. I recommend Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Summer Depression

Now, I have talked to you before about Reverse SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder) and some of you still don't believe that such a thing exists. 

IT EXISTS. 

And I am starting to freak out a bit with summer right around the corner. Spring is lovely. And I am sure that I would appreciate it without all of these danged allergies. Every orifice of my face is a spigot. I am taking so many anti-histamines that even my bones feel sleepy. But outside it is pretty. I can tell, because I am looking at it from the safety of my window.

This spring I am going to mentally prep myself for summer. I am going to buy some blackout curtains for my bedroom. I am going to re-read all of the Dresden Files series. I am going to farm out my kids to relatives. This summer should also be better because I will be working part time at the coffee shack and will have access to shot after shot of espresso. Iced. (Because even one hot cup of coffee makes my body temperature rise.) Lots and lots of iced americanos. I will stay inside as much as possible and away from the oppressive day star and its oppressive oppressive heat. I will survive the summer, oh yes. I will survive.

There is this song that Spongebob Squarepants sings. I love it so much that I embroidered it.

I know of a place
where you never
get harmed.
A MAGICAL place
with
MAGICAL CHARMS...
indoors,
indoors,
INDOORS!

Of course, when I was putting the embroidery in the frame, I accidentally dropped the corner on my face and gave myself a fat lip, thus disproving the whole 'never get harmed' theory.