Welcome to my stuff

You know what this site lacks? A regular feature. All the best bloggers are doing it. You know what I mean, right? I'm talking about those bloggers that have this regular thing they do each week? I enjoy checking out theendisnow.com where once a week the author features the marquis of a nearby church. Blonde Vigilante puts up one of her own fiction pieces and every Wednesday on The Search for a Good Story Mr. Orange writes about his family.

The marquis idea is a good one, but it's taken. I frankly don't have enough fiction pieces to make that a regular feature, and writings about my family at this early stage in parenthood would consist of little more than eating, cooing and pooing. But I'll think of something. I'm warning you though that when it comes to this sort of thing, I'm not good at long-term committments, so I'm not promising much. How about five simple installments? Of what, you ask? Hell, I don't know. Stuff, I guess.

Stuff.

Hmmm.

OK then. Without further ado, I bring you the first edition of Welcome to My Stuff™.

The stuff you see pictured above hangs in the corner of our sunroom. We love our sunroom. And our stuff. Originally we were going to paint the room a boring beige color and wallpaper one wall in a tea-stained floral print to give the space that Parisian budget hotel look, but I eventually picked this sunflower yellow from the Martha Stewart collection instead. We love Martha. And her stuff.

The bright color of the walls gives off a warm feeling and for the European touch we were looking for, we decided to deck the room with, among other things, remnants of our various pre-parental travels. I guess you could call this corner the Prague corner because smack dab in the middle of the picture is a marionette hanging from the ceiling that we got during our trip to Prague. We call him Barbu which is French for "guy with a beard."

You may wonder why if this guy came from the Czech Republic would we give him a French name. Well, for starters my knowledge of the Czech language is limited to a few simple courtesy phrases, "guy with a beard" not being one of them, and furthermore even if I did know how to say "guy with a beard" in Czech, it would most likely be 19 syllables and consist mostly of oddly accented characters not found on my keyboard.

Anyway when we were in Prague two years ago they hadn't yet switched totally over to the euro so doing the currency conversion between dollars and crowns seemed to involve first calculating the derivative for the natural log and then multiplying it by the square root of the current Julian date. I never did get the hang of it, and as a result I discovered shortly after buying Barbu that for what I spent on him I could have just as easily purchased another off-season round-trip ticket to Europe. Oh well, you live and learn.

To Barbu's left is a small metal replica of a Czech street sign that says PRAHA. Praha is Czech for Prague. Are you keeping up in case there's a vocab quiz later? The sepia-toned photo underneath is a postcard depicting one of Prague's tram cars in the 1950s. Other pictures shown are the inside of a hot air balloon we rode in one Mystery Date early on in our dating days, some framed postcards bought in San Francisco, and two gifted posters.

My sister gave us the poster for Orangina and Elaine's sister gave us the one for the 1950s Book Fair. The latter was bought with the assumption that we would hang it in the baby's room, but we liked it too much to hang it where we would only see it during late-night feedings and messy diaper changes.

In the upper-left corner of the photo is an alligator sitting atop a wooden bowl filled with wine corks. The alligator is really only my stuff in the marital sense of what's your stuff is my stuff. It belonged to Elaine before we were married but he's cool enough that I now would want to consider him my stuff, as opposed to the extensive shoe collection she brought into the marriage which I would consider simply still her stuff. You can't really tell this in the picture but he's actually a stuffed animal. Not one I'd let my kid curl up with at night but one she might, once toddler years strike, point to and demand I get down for her to look at, carry around, and then leave for the dog to claim as his own when she's dropped it in the backyard. Meryl, the alligator is a look-but-don't-touch kind of toy.

As for the cork bowl, it was moved up on top of the hutch from its original location on our coffee table in the living room. Whenever we returned home from work, we would notice that some of the corks would have mysteriously disappeared. We knew the cat was the main culprit because sometimes we'd come home to find him meowing frustratedly at the oven and trying to reach underneath it to retrieve something. When Elaine or I would get the yardstick and poke around under the stove, seven or eight corks would come rolling out. Sometimes the dog would get in on the action and snatch one up to chew into tiny slobbery indigestible pieces. I should point out that not all the corks are from wine we drank ourselves.

Some are from champagnes.

The behemoth radio with the antenna that extends further than I can reach was a gift from my father-in-law. He has one of his own and claims he can get radio stations from all over the Western hemisphere. Admittedly at Sangean.com (the people who manufacture the radio) they say you can use it to pick up Morse code, military broadcasts and encrypted messages. One day I messed with it for hours trying to get something recognizable to come in on the shortwave band, but it was to no avail. We use it to listen to Garrison Keillor on NPR.

Well, there you have it, the first edition of Welcome to My Stuff™. I hope you've found it entertaining if not enlightening. I told you I wasn't going to promise much. If you ever come over for cocktails you can see it in person. Just don't touch my stuff.

Ok, you can touch the shortwave if you think you can get it pick up something other than Lake Wobegon.

Burger King gets new facelift

Eight months ago I wrote about those creepy Burger King commercials with the guy in the gargantuan plastic head running around taunting people. I haven't seen one of those commercials in a long time which is good because the way the Burger King himself is portrayed is just downright disturbing and sure to evoke nightmares in young children and senior citizens. You can read what I wrote by clicking here

Since posting that image of the creepy plastic head my blog has received numerous hits because of people who were searching for that very picture. The other day 27% of my hits were from people who clicked on that image after finding it in Google. As delighted as I am that strangers the world over are finding the true path to enlightenment via cocktailswithkevin.com I sometimes feel like I'm nothing more than a thankless middleman who's shilling the Burger King plastic-headed creepy guy, a royal replica I find most disturbing. And who wouldn't?

So I got an idea.

What if instead of the current image










People saw this image:









I got out the cyber crayons and let the creative juices flow. With a little help from Publisher and MSPaint I could turn the king of the Whopper into the smiling Lord of the Underworld in a matter of minutes. I then uploaded the file to my domain provider with the same filename as the previous image.

This sophomoric prank didn't quite get me the results I was expecting and I'm sure the reason has something to do with the inner mysteries of Googlism that a techno-stupe like me wouldn't understand. Before if you googled "burger king head" (quit thinking naughty thoughts -- this is serious) and ran an image search my blog was one of the first couple to show up. It showed the undoctored image as it previously appeared on my blog.

Now when you run the same search, although I've changed the image on my blog to the new and improved maniacal masterpiece, it doesn't show up on the Google search results page. Instead it shows the old boring image, the same one you can steal off my site or a plethora of other people's websites. Also if you then click on the image you either get the old picture and the page in my blog upon which it's found or you simply see the pictureless directive See full-size image with the webpage appearing underneath that.

If you then click on either the old picture or the pictureless directive, depending on which one comes up in your search, you'll be directed to the demonic picture. Why though does it not show in the original Google search?

Part of me wonders if this has something to do with Google's caching (by the way is that pronounced like "cashing", "coshing" or "kuh-ching?" These things I ponder.) Anyway, is there somebody out there who knows whether my creepy creation will eventually end up on the pages of Google? Will people the world over finally see, thanks to my devilish artistry, that this image of the Burger King is really a reincarnation of Lucifer himself? For all we know the real Burger King is still hiding inside that evil mask begging us to help him out.

I need an old priest and a young priest.

Call center etiquette

For my handy dandy All American guide to getting what you want from a call center, click here.

Words on any particular topic about which I'd be prepared to write a suitable entry elude me today. I can think of nothing particularly interesting to write on, but since I have been spending the past hour or so enjoying others write about how they spend their eight hours of cubedom, I will share a bit of the tedium that is my work day. Since I work in a call center, let's start with a breakdown of what goes on and maybe a little lesson in call center etiquette. No, I don't mean rules for the customer service person to abide by. I mean some suggestions for ye who is eventually asked to oprima numero dos por continuar in español.

Our company does not have an automated system so most people who call me are delighted that they did not have to push button their way through three rounds of Mary Had A Little Lamb before getting through to a live operator. Often the caller on the other end of my phone begins the conversation with Are you a real person? This question begs for a smart-ass remark, but usually I decline. Many people have been forwarded my company's number by their insurance company with instructions to call so sometimes I get XYZ insurance company told me to call you but I don't exactly know why. Again, I so want to tell them they were sent here so I could share with them my prize-winning chocolate chip cookie recipe but I do not. I am always amazed at the people who after calling say Who are you people anyway? A troupe of dancing midgets, Ma'am. How may we help you?

At some point in the conversation after I allow the caller to share their tale of woe, little of which usually ever has any bearing on how I can help them, I have to take down their personal information (name, address, etc.) I find that if I've let them rant enough, they're then usually happy to let me take over the conversation and get what I need from them. Occasionally though they will want to continue telling me crap I really don't care to hear. Such a discussion might go something like this:

Me: What's your last name?

Caller: Johnson. So I was in my insurance company today and they told me I had to call.

Me: Right, and your first name?

Caller: Joe. You wouldn't believe what I'm paying for car insurance.

Me: I can imagine. And your address Mr. Johnson?

Most people truly just want to be heard, even when much of what they say isn't worth hearing.

When it comes time for me to take down someone's address the caller will sometimes just say 123 Main Street and stop right there. Some will go on to give a city but no state. Californians are the worst about this, as though residing in the Golden State means your city stands on its own like Cher or Madonna. I like to throw Californians off so that when they say 123 Main Street, San Bernardino I always respond with Wisconsin?

Speaking of states, let me say a few words on some that warrant a talking to.

Hawaii: Without fail a Hawaiian -- let's call him James Cook -- will call me and after spelling his monosyllabic four-letter name go on to say something like My address is 123 Melekalikimakaoahumaui Street , that's S-T-R-E-E-T, Street. People, I'm doing well to get Schenectady and Ypsilanti spelled correctly. Give me a break. Sometimes I think Hawaiians get off on knowing I don't know how to spell their heathen street names.

Michigan: Speaking of Ypsilanti, what is it with all you people in the Wolverine State? When you call you sound like the world is coming to an end and your dog just got hit by a car. These people just always sound so sad. When I answer the phone and ask how may I help you a Michigander's whiny response is often Well, I don't know if you can help me. So why did you call, you freaking sad sap? Because it sure wasn't to share a little sunshine.

North and South Dakotas: Whereas Michiganders sound like they can't bring themselves to go on living, people in the Dakotas sound like they've just discovered amphetamines for the first time. They're always happy and jovial. What's more, you know that movie Fargo? They really do talk like that.

New York: On behalf of the entire population of the United States outside of the Empire State, I would like to make a sincere apology. New Yorkers, for years we all have mistaken you for being rude. We were wrong. It's just that we can't distinguish your accent from that of those who reside in New Jersey.

New Jersey: See above.

Kentucky: Is your state just one big mobile home park? Being a fellow Southerner I hate to say this but you people sound like your public school system stops at the third grade. It's not the accent. It's poor diction and grammar and . . . let me just stop right there.

Speaking of accents, let me say something on the topic. When you ask a Southerner where they're from and they tell you what state they were born in, you following up with Wow, you don't have a Southern accent is rude. This is on par with telling a minority Wow, you're very articulate. Having a Southern accent is not something to be ashamed of and therefore not having one is not something to be proud of. You mean it to be a compliment, but it is not one. It is a backhanded insult.

Other annoyances are those who instead compliment me on my Southern accent and then when I respond with You have a nice accent as well say Ummm, but I don't have an accent. Think about it people. This isn't rocket science. Everyone has an accent. Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter have accents. Ted Koppell and Dan Rather have accents. Midwesterners, I know it hurts you to admit it, but you too have an accent.

Moving on.

Many people will then ask where they're calling. When I call a business I do this too. Therefore this is acceptable behavior.

At first I was reluctant to ask people for their Social Security number. In college I peddled credit cards over the phone and asking for someone's Social Secutiy number was often a deal breaker. Now that my calls are strictly inbound, you'd be surprised at how many people give out their Socil Security number as freely as they would their astrological sign. To be honest even if they refuse I can usually get it once they tell me their name and address if I search hard enough. It just makes my job easier if I don't have to jump through as many hoops. The less work I have to do with a caller on the phone, the more easily I can help him and thus the more likely he is to get what he wants in a timely fashion. People don't always understand this though and instead see phoning a call center as an opportunity to stick it to the man.

Irate callers, let me take this opportunity to put it to you straight. You're pissed. You know you're pissed, and I know you're pissed. I can appreciate that. But to be honest, neither I nor my employer had anything to do with you being pissed. If you're on my phone, you're most likely pissed because of something your insurance company did. I know they told you to call this number, but this company only does what your insurance company pays us to do including "being the heavy." When you pay your premium each month, you are paying your insurance company to continue pissing you off. It's as simple as that.

That being said, I love my irate callers. I will truly try and help them if I can regardless of the tone or the language they use. Do keep in mind however that although yours truly doesn't do it, many will take pleasure in putting the irate potty mouth on speaker phone so that other coworkers can join in the fun.

Although I can deal with a potty mouth, what I don't love are the women (it's always women) who start the conversation with I'm calling for my son. Fine. I'll ask for the son's name, his address, his driver's license number, his phone number, his Social Security number, the name of his insurance company and finally his date of birth. Get this. Whenever someone calls on behalf of her son, the son's birthdate seldom if ever falls after 1975. Lady, whatever problem your calling about that your 30-something son has, it doesn't compare to the problem he has because you, his mommy, still coddle him like he can't go to the bathroom by himself. Usually these are the guys with multiple collision claims and 4 DUI's. I wish I were kidding.

While those of us who work in call centers often have little control over the cause of your shitty situation, we do often have the ability to make your situation shittier. I can truly and proudly say you won't get this from me, but some call center peeps look at their ringing phone as an opportunity to compensate for their own lack of social standing, lack of education or lack of pay by exerting their unwanted influence on someone else's life. I predict the same people who can't get decent help via a call center are the same people who get served spat-on fries at the drive-thru.

Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease; Other times it gets put on hold . . .

Or given the ol' run-around . . .

Or . . . CLICK .

La Madeleine restaurant is faux-French

Today as a change in lunch venues I ventured into the local La Madeleine café and bakery. Before going any further let me say that in college I was a French major which qualifies me for teaching French, salting the fries, working in a call center or critiquing the many aberrations found on the menus and signage of quasi-French restaurants. When enjoying an overpriced salad, chocolate torte and two double espressos at La Madeleine, it's specifically the latter skill that seems to rear its ugly pretentious head.

For starters the flag shown on the sign outside this establishment that trumpets itself a "French" restaurant does not even closely resemble the French flag. The French flag consists of three vertical bands of equal width: blue; white; and red. The emblem displayed on the sign in the parking lot shows three horizontal bands of blue, white and red. As far as I can tell, this isn't the actual flag of any country but instead looks like the flag for the Netherlands flying upside down. Is this some anti-Dutch sentiment being expressed by the higher-ups at La Madeleine? Whatever it is, it's not the French flag. I'm just saying.

Another faux-pas I saw that grated on my nerves was a sign for a drink they serve called the "Crème frappé [sic]." Kudos to them for getting the accents correct but shame on them for forgetting the obligatory second E on frappée. Crème is a feminine noun and therefore adjectives following it should take the feminine form. You say un dessert frappé (a frozen dessert) but une crème frappeé (an overpriced frozen coffee-like treat.) Notice the additional E because crème is feminine.

Another grammatical gripe was the kids' menu that was labeled "le children's menu." This is just stupid. At the bottom it also says "10 and under s'il vous plaît." Again, this is just a linguistic melange that looks stilted at best.

You know what else? There's not a single French wine in the place. Oh yes, they will proudly serve you a glass of the Beringer White Zinfandel, but sadly your craving for gallic nectar will not be satiated here. The closest they come is a bottle of Clos du Bois, which if you pay any attention to their ads on the radio, the wine in the bottle is no more French than the fake Frenchie accented actor who does the commercials.

What La Madeleine does offer that is slightly reminiscent of a Parisian cafe is people watching. In the hour I was there, I saw some real characters come into this place, several of whom were employees of the Spa Sydell next door. They were easily identifiable because of the skin-tight black lycra they wear. Sadly they apparently are made to wear this even if their body type doesn't lend itself to black lycra. This was especially the case with the gaysian woman who, judging by the size of her biceps, must have been a masseuse. Her thighs obviously don't receive the same daily workout as her arms do.

I sat at the table directly across from the register so I constantly had people's oversized asses staring me in the face while I ate. One woman was wearing something I guess could best be described as sweatknickers. They were made of sweatpant material and only went down mid chubby calf. Her pantyline was also evident because of the flesh spilling out of her underwear. People, they make clothes for that.

One sinewy man was wearing shorts that revealed several lacerations on his ankles and calves. He had a hardback book but I couldn't make out the title. By the looks of him it was probably How to Escape from a High Security Prison. I'm serious. His legs looked like he tried to scale a razorwire fence. All for an Orangina. Go figure.

La Madeleine offers up some yummy treats, and if you don't mind paying the inflated prices on the food, it's not really too bad as far as chains go. It's buffet-style so you don't have to tip. Breads are good there too. But as far as French goes, this place really ain't got it.

I take that back -- there is one thing that reminded me of France while I was there.

Their bathrooms smell much like those in the Paris metro.

Babies R Us shopper leaves empty-handed

A most generous real estate client and his family recently sent me a $50 gift card to Babies R Us. Before Meryl was born, Elaine and I looked somewhat dispargingly at this place as the Megolomart of baby products, a corporate monolith to be overlooked and passed over in favor of smaller quainter baby boutiques, and yet once we went in we were enamored with all the wonderful things to be found there. Since my wife delivered almost 11 weeks ago, we have dropped I don't know how much money into that very establishment. We've been countless times and each time find something we feel we must get, even if it's just diapers and formula. Their prices are cheaper than many other places and they sell all the practical stuff along with the frills.

On my lunch break the other day I went in Babies R Us once again to to buy something for Meryl. Since most all of our purchases bought with shower gift cards have been of the practical variety (diapers, pacifiers, wireless mouse and keyboard), I thought I would take this opportunity to get her something fun, something she would enjoy and something we would enjoy watching her enjoy.

The problem with baby toys is that they only come in garish primary colors. Fire engine red. School bus yellow. Lime green. That alone isn't necessarily bad, and I know this is because these colors are easiest for her developing eyes to see, but . . . this is going to sound selfish . . . they don't match our furniture. All our rooms are painted with Martha Stewart colors and Martha just doesn't recommend any of the colors on the Fisher Price pallet. And for good reason. They clash like polka dots with animal print.

We have not showered our daughter excessively with toys yet, and I don't see it happening. She does however have the Little Tikes 5-in-1 Adjustable Gym that she likes. It looks like a plastic sawhorse tipped over on its side. You lay her underneath it and when she kicks the board at the bottom, lights blink above her head and music plays. She loves it and flails her little arms and legs when it makes music, especially Itsy Bitsy Spider, but the thing is an eyesore.

When you're looking for toys appropriate for children aged zero to six months, you quickly find the choices are limited. I don't know what I walked in there expecting to find. A ten-week-old can't exactly sort blocks or operate a remote control car. Her daily activities now are limited to cooing, kicking, arm flailing, pooping, peeing and squealing, and most of those abilities don't lend themselves to play time.

Most of the toys in her age group are variations of the one thing she already has. Some gyms play more songs, some have different lights, some have plush rattles that hang down in her face, but they're all just more of the same. Some of them go for more than $70. Yes, that's a seven and a zero. Seventy. My daughter would rue the day that I paid that much on a toy for her at this age because to rationalize the amount spent I would make her play with it for the next ten years. Who needs the Barbie Dream House when Barbie can just live in the Little Tikes 5-in-1 Adjustable Gym? And if Ken head-butts the green board at the bottom, they can both dance to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

I left Babies R Us with nothing in hand but the gift card I walked in with. It's difficult to justify spending obscene amounts of money (even gifted monies) on toys that she'll outgrow before I figure out how to put the batteries in them. Besides, Meryl's favorite activity now is laying on her changing table watching the overhead fan spin around and I wanna milk that for as long as I can. I'll go back to the store in a few days and probably purchase some of the ol' standbys: diapers, formula, maybe the 80s Edition of Trivial Pursuit™ .

Did I mention you can also use the card at Toys R Us?

Free panties

I love getting stuff for free. I don't mean stealing stuff; I mean rightfully getting things without paying. I don't hesitate to use coupons if I have them or even pass off coupons for items I don't have if I think I can successfully sneak them by the cashier. When the check-out person bags an item she accidentally didn't zap, I keep my mouth shut. If I feel I've been provided inferior service, as has been the case with Charter, my shitty monopolistic internet provider, I am quick to try and argue successfully for a $75 credit. If our parents offer to take us out to eat, we have long given up asking to split the bill. Yesterday my wife sent me out to acquire a new addition to our list of freebies. She provided me with a coupon that entitled the bearer to a free panty from Victoria's Secret.

I'm not too crazy about Victoria's Secret, much less going in there for a free panty. I've always thought women looked best when they wear the least and my preference is bare skin. As for my own tastes in undergarmentry I usually go commando, so panties, free or otherwise aren't all that appealing to me. But if it's a free panty my wife wants, it's a free panty she gets.

I walked in and briefly fingered some of the merchandise as though I were going to make a purchase. Sure, the experienced sales lady can see through this charade, but it makes me feel better about asking for free underpants. When the striking blonde wanted to know if she could help me find anything, I didn't just tell her I was there for my free panty. I told her I had recently bought merchandise from another location and then received the coupon for free panties in the mail. I had hoped the sentiment I would convey was Oh how silly I feel asking for a handout of unmentionables when I just paid the equivalent of your weekly salary at another one of your store's locations in order to outfit my harem. I don't know if the she bought it, but she picked out my panty and called me sweety. What more can you ask of a salesgirl?

Even though I like getting stuff for free, there's this mild guilt feeling that sets in shortly after accepting. I call it the taker's remorse. To compensate for my taker's remorse brought on by a free low-rise bikini-cut cream colored panty, I continued to feign wanting to buy something else. On the way to the register (yes, they even have to ring up free undies) I eyed the various lip glosses. Colalicisious? Hmm, maybe. Melonberry Squash? Could be tasty. Bubblegum Bimbo? Nah, I'll just take my free draw's, thank you.

Doing my wife's bidding only took up fifteen minutes of my hour(ish)-long lunch, so I spent the rest of my time walking around the mall carrying a little pink bag the size of what I usually pack my lunch in. Lingerie boutiques generally don't have the manliest looking of bags and I contemplated ditching it and just putting the underwear in my pocket. The bag looked like one Elaine would want to keep for regifting purposes though so I just carried it through the mall wondering if the people I passed knew by the size of my parcel that all I got for my wife at Victoria's Secret was a free pair of panties. I felt like a cheapskate who was advertising his frugality to the other mall rats.

My other concern when walking around with a bag that clearly came from a woman's clothing store is that people wonder if I bought something for myself there. My sister used to manage such a place and she said that they occasionally would get a request over the phone from a man wanting to shop for himself. Her standard line was that if he'd like they'd invite him to come during the store's slow period where he could try things on uninhibited. She says he never did, probably because he just got off talking about it to a sales person over the phone. When I worked at Toys R Us we occasionally got a guy who called up asking if we'd change his diaper, but that's a story for another time.

How do cyber searchers find enlightenment?

Right up there on my list of employer-time-wasting obssessions along with checking my email and looking to see if there are new comments on my blog is looking at the referral section of my site meter account. This is geek speak for finding out what site people were on before they clicked on to cocktailswithkevin.com. Sometimes people find their way to my collection of opinionated wisdom by clicking on a link from one of the many generous people who link directly to me. A few people come here after finding my biased bitchiness on another blog they've read or because I've posted something on Metroblogging Atlanta. The ones I find most amusing though are the ones who come via a search engine. If you have a blog, you know where this is going.

I know a lot of bloggers celebrate when they find someone new who's found their blog by asking Jeeves to tell them the names of hot bimbo sluts in the Houston area or googling celebrities masturbating while nude. I've had a few of those too, the most memorable of which was someone who found me after querying mom won't let me go poo in the stall. I'm not making that up. They actually used the word "poo."

One of the most popular searches people use to find me isn't as risque as poo though. It's in utero baby pictures on Google. Because one of my earlier articles was entitled in utero pictures of baby and it contained two images of my unborn just thirteen weeks into the gestation process, people from all over the planet have found their way to my little corner of cyber space just to see her pictures. For the most part I think that's cool, but part of me worries that someday I'll be watching a news story and her image will be on the placard of some anti-abortion activist. On more than one occasion I've thought of adding a pro-choice caption to the pictures. Maybe I could super impose a picture of the Virgin Mary or the Dali Lama in it somewhere and give my daughter a possible shot at a plug in The Enquirer.

Other weirdos have found me by searching for pictures of trichotillomania where trichotillomania is a so-called nervous disorder in which the subject pulls out his own hair. A few months back I wrote about the desire to pull out my cowlick and some people find me because of that. Whenever I see trichotillomania in the referring link I always click on the site to see what other pages came up for the same search words. There are some strange people out there who, instead of writing about an aversion to grocery shopping or meeting up with bears, write zealously about pulling out their eyelashes and eyebrows. That's just effed up. Reading their stuff makes me feel a lot more secure about myself.

Yesterday took the cake though. At 12:31 PM on July 8, some poor schlub found cocktailswithkevin.com after googling went to bar in hood to fill my wifes fantasies and she left with black guys. Dude, I feel for you. Really I do, but I find it amusing that whoever you are you use words like "hood" and then find it surprising that your wife left you for some guys who, I can only assume, are darker complected than your pasty ass. What exactly you understood your wife's fantasies to be, I have no idea. You leave us in the dark on that one. Had she lured you to the local watering hole with the intent of picking up another woman? Another man? Did she want to play that game where you two pretend to be strangers and you offer to buy her a drink and wind up taking her home? Oh, the mystery of it all!

And these Black guys, who were they exactly? A couple of men she recognized from work? Or church maybe? Did any of them claim to be the manager of a Nigerian bank account and offer her a cut if she agrees to give up your personal banking information? It bothers me that I don't know more about his situation. In less than two minutes this poor forlorn cyber searcher clicked on four of my entries before leaving, so I can only hope he found some quick solace in what he read. Either that or he kept reading with the hopes of finding out how he might relocate his wife and gave up after only four clicks. There's no way of knowing really. I have to let it go or my obsessive hair-pulling self will agonize over it for hours trying to figure it all out.

If he doesn't get his wife back, maybe he'll run into the Canadian who found me yesterday evening by searching on Yahoo for amputee skim boarding. Where do these people come from? In both cases, I hope these two eventually find what they're looking for. And thanks for stopping by.

Cha cha cha: less is more

While many spent this weekend flipping burgers on a grill or setting off bottle rockets and roman candles, I enjoyed breathtaking views and the crisp air that only the North Georgia Mountains can offer. My in-laws recently purchased a home in Big Canoe, a private golf community that’s hidden away between Ellijay, Jasper and Dawsonville. The view out their living room is nothing but miles of preserved mountainous green space, and as night falls lightning bugs dot the landscape as far as the eye can see. After only a few days of being here these images are firmly imbedded in my mind and yet, try as I might, I cannot adequately describe how majestic the scenery is.

As spectacular as all this sounds, I often find that when visiting family for more than a couple of days I have to set aside some time to venture out and enjoy some solitude. I don’t find visiting in-laws stressful, but I think one of the reasons I don’t find it stressful is because I know when to sneak away and give them a break from my strident opinions and pointless anecdotes. When visiting them in Florida, I’d hop on the bicycle and ride to the clubhouse where overpriced red table wine was waiting for me, but in a mountain community a bike ride down to the club house would spell sudden death. Instead I opted to walk the dog.

Shortly after setting out on the hike it became evident that the map I had was neither drawn to scale nor did it give any real indication as to how curvy a road was. I had planned to take a simple stroll by following a line that according to the map was a simple circle. A more accurate representation of this road would have been a wet spaghetti noodle strewn willy-nilly on a plate. Furthermore the plate would have to be tilted so that half the walk was a treacherous fall and the trip back was practically a vertical hike up. With no houses and only an occasional deer along the first part of the journey, this course was also very isolated. I started to feel like Ricky Schroeder in that old movie The Earthling where he’s stranded in the mountains after his parents go careening over a ledge in a Winnebago. At least I had a cell phone.

Two hours into the walk I did run into a 50-something guy who introduced himself to me and, after learning of my destination, tried to convince me to turn back around. Apparently he jogs the same route periodically and said I was only about a quarter of the way around my spaghetti noodle. About the time I said goodbye to him Elaine called on the cell phone wanting to know where I was. I told her I still had a good ways to go but would call if I needed someone to come pick me up.

My dog and I rounded yet another serpentine curve when suddenly we heard some rustling sound in the woods somewhere ahead of us. We each looked up to find the source of the noise and froze dead in our tracks when we saw it. It was a bear. Before this point my experience with bears was limited to seeing the polar variety ice skate at the Budapest circus and the animated variety dance around in celebration of moist toilet paper. This bear wasn't like either of those. It did appear however that he was running straight for us, so I knew my options were either decide quickly what sort of action to take or find myself needing to borrow his moist toilet paper.

I got the impression the bear was as startled to see us as we were him. As soon as he got within sight of us (a good 20 yards away), he stopped and looked up. My faithful Irish Terrier was already pulling against his leash at the ready to dart into the woods after the bear the same way he would do toward another dog. I tried to calm him down with the hopes he wouldn't bark. About that time a car was coming down the road, and I motioned for the driver to stop which he did.

I don't remember the couple's names, so I'll just refer to them as Lord and Savior. Lord rolled down his window and explained that they had seen the bear running down the road. Savior mentioned that he normally hangs out in her back yard, and they were making sure he wasn't going to be hit by a car. As we were conversing the bear turned around slowly and meandered back up the hill through the woods. Lord and Savior asked me where I was going and gave me a sad look when I told them. They offered me a ride to the next cross street so as to get a leg up on the bear. I took them up on it.

Lord went on to tell me that the bear I had seen was about two years old and that this was his first year without his mother. He apparently spends much of his time in the woods behind their house, and if he gets too close, they just clap their hands and he runs off. They were concerned for him because there have been some unnecessary bear shootings in the area lately and they didn't want him to be one of them. My mother is want to leave food for her woodland critters as well, such as opossums, birds, squirrels, the neighborhood cats and at one time a fox, so I suppose I can't begrudge someone for checking up on a bear. Anyway, they dropped me at a convenient intersection of two streets so that I could either carry on walking or phone in a distress call.

Five minutes and one phone call later my father-in-law showed up to rescue us from wayfaring fatigue. My legs ached and the cell phone was running out of battery. Having set out with zero provisions, I was both hungry and thirsty. Moreover I didn't want to risk another bear run-in and not be able to call for help. So after a quick telephonic clicking of the heels I was back in the bosom of my family. I had a good story to tell, and now that I've survived the wilderness the views of Big Canoe seem all the more majestic.