Walking Endeavor Home 
or the coolest video on the planet right now

Okay, so by now you know about my soft spot for the shuttle program. Photos of the fly-bys of Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor on their way to their final resting place brought me to tears each and every viewing.

I'm getting teary now just thinking about it.

I am a ginormous sap.

Is this not the funniest juxtaposition?

Whatev. It's who I am. I get attached to inanimate objects, especially those upon which I have bestowed anthropomorphic characteristics. Does that even make sense?

Aaaaaanyway...

This weekend the last of the space shuttle crafts traveled 12 miles through Inglewood to its new home at the Los Angeles Science Center. It was slow going, taking days rolling along at a top speed of 2 mph. The city had to cut down 268 trees, remove 223 traffic lights and raise more than 100 power/utility lines in order for Endeavor to shimmy around trees, homes and poles to accomplish the journey, but HOLY CRAP! How crazy awesome would it be to see this out of your bedroom window?

your rides here

It's once in a lifetime, man.

After 25 missions, logging nearly 123 million miles in flight during 4,671 orbits, battered and bruised, she's earned the fanfare surrounding her retirement. Sweet dreams, l'il marvel.


Bryan Chan from the Los Angeles Times created a spectacular time-lapsed video found here. I've already watched it a zillion times. It's just that cool. Enjoy!

I love the missing tiles on the underbelly

Holy SHIT that's close

And Now For Something Completely Different...

A hedge hog

In an attempt to make up for the prior miserable TMI post, I offer up this funny from Ze Frank, the inspiration for all the Green Brothers' blogs.

"The hedge hog is made up of two parts. The exoskeleton and the underbelly called a scrotum...by idiots."


Now you know how the universe began. Not with a bang, but with a pffffft.

In Which I Am A Maple Tree And Other Fun Menopausal Shit

WARNING: File this under TMI. I am nothing if not an oversharer.


1. Okay, so here's the thing, I have curly hair.

You may say big deal, and you may. Go ahead, Jerk. I'll wait for your Jagoff self.

The significance of this statement is I have NEVER had curly hair. Not for one second of this current life cycle. And yet, there it is. On top of my pea-sized head... curls. Unruly, Medusa-like, you-got-a-fucking-family-of-copperheads-nesting-on-your-head curly-cues.

You know in the Fall when the trees cease producing the chlorophyll that maintains their youthful green leaves, allowing the true colors of yellow, orange and red to emerge for all to marvel at their hidden beauty? Well, ever since I have turned a "woman of a certain age", as my estrogen manufacture has decreased, the ringlets have increased exponentially. Apparently estrogen is human chlorophyll. Dude, I'm fucking deciduous. I'm ready if Barbara Walters ever asks me what tree I'd be.

"I'm a MUTHAFUCKING MAPLE, BITCH!"

Who knew the only thing stopping me from looking like Orphan Annie was estrogen. The irony is I alwaysalwaysALWAYS wanted curly hair. I coveted all three of my sisters for their luscious locks thinking my life would be so much easier with care-free curls. Back in the 80s, I used to pay a lot of money and waste a lot of time at the hairdresser's inhaling the noxious fumes of permanent waves to have that big curly mop. Now I've got corkscrew hair, but have no idea how to tame its whack-ass cowlicks. Seriously. Those things have a mind of their own. I'm looking at you, right side. Why you got to be so ornery, beyatch?


2. Okay, so here's another thing, I have Menopause Head

No shit. I swear to God there are huge swiss cheese holes in my brain through which all new information plummets to the ground in a splattered mess. Names, dates, appointments... if I don't write it down AND set the alarm on my Reminder Ap to repeat-every-fucking-day-for-the-rest-of-your-pathetic-life-until-you-do-it-for-Chrissake, it's lost, dropped and stepped on.

And vocabulary...Fuggetaboutit. Midstream in a conversation, I loose my words. I'm not talking long, sophisticated five-syllable terms either. I'm talking first grade fare like car, ball, muddler.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I have Adult-Onset ADH---SQUIRREL!!!

I get distracted so easily. I am a human gnat...with a beard, perhaps a goatee if I want to get a wee crazy. (see #4) Heaven help me if I don't immediately write down a thought, because it is gone, baby, GONE! Like right now I had a riveting sentence to craftily illustrate the perfect example of the topic at hand, but then the stupid computer at The Special K on which I began composing this tome went wonky and froze every six seconds, and the phone rang with some yahoo's bogus request, and my coworker kept walking in bellyaching that his precious Cleveland Brown game wasn't on CBS. Like I even care about football let alone his stupid Cleveland team, Good God, MAN not when there's an inane hockey strike going on without any ... what do you call it? not relief or progress...SETTLEMENT! That's it! What was I talking about?


3. And get this, I can't see for shit

I am practically blind, but my eyes have been the same level of horrendous myopia for over 30 years. My prescription didn't budge. Now it waffles back and forth more than Mitt Romney over healthcare. In my infinite wisdom, I've decided to try my hand at contacts again. Couple a fluctuating nearsighted prescription with an ever deteriorating ability to read words on a page, and I need a team of physicists to figure out a viable script for contacts.

The first try was with mono vision. You know the drill where one eye is fitted for distance, the other for reading. Supposedly your brain miraculously makes it all work. Mine does not. Mine is a slow learner. Mine is an obstinate cow. Seriously. I'm on the sixth option and still no solution in sight. Pun intended. In most combinations, I can see distance like the finest HD signal. So clearly it hurts my head a little, but I can't see my electronic lover, the iPhone. And THAT my friend, as Liz Lemon would say, is a deal breaker.


4. While you're at it, call me Abe...

As in Lincoln, because as you know by now... I have a beard. And here's the weird thing, as much as I keep the waxing industry going hiding my Sasquatch face, my legs have become significantly less simian. So much so that I have to make a mental note to actually shave them. The bikini area... not so much. That bad boy's still whooping it up, because the universe is a DICK!

And another related thing, as soon I lost all of my estrogen, I lost all the elasticity in my jaw line. I'm not even overweight (technically. shut up.), but Holy Crap I have hanging chad jowls. Mmmmm, pretty. So now when I'm speeding in the car with the windows down and I think what is that weird flapping sound... Oh yeah, that's my FACE!!!!


5. I am officially retired from breederhood.

Yep, the not-so-fertile delta is closed, dried up, and awaiting repurposing. I'm down with the death of Aunt Flo and her annoying monthly visits, but the demise of my sexual desire... not so much. It's so not fair. When I turned 40, my libido went into overdrive following a natural instinct to procreate before the final buzzer.

And It. Was. Awesome! And I miss it desperately.

My piqued sexual interest lasted until about 49 when it quietly faded away into a distant memory. Experts keep saying this is an ideal time of life. I don't see it. What I see is a major disconnect between my head and Vajay. All I know is I'm too damn young to be this dead inside.

So, my advice to women in their 40s is have a lot of sex. A LOT. I'm not even kidding. Don't deny your instinct. Do it a ton. Even if you don't think you want to, do it anyway. Store it up, Sista. Savor it, because before you know it, the fucking change a-happens and your body betrays your ass, or vagina, as it were, and your Menopause Head can't remember how to spell desire, let alone feel it. I wish someone would have given this advice to me at 40, so I'm imparting this sad truth to you because I CARE, DAMMIT!


Wow. That turned into a downer. Maturing (God I hate that word) is actually a joy. It's the other physical shit that's weird and unsettling and sucky. I am more comfortable in my skin, even if that skin is sprouting a beard so thick Sid Crosby would be jealous.

I finally read Nora Efron's famed book of humorous essays on aging titled, I Feel Bad About My Neck. Twenty years ago I would have tossed it aside without a second glance. But now, I totally relate. I feel bad about my neck, I feel bad about my failing eyesight, and I feel bad about my nonfunctional lady bits.

Well, at least I have ringlets...and a large bottle of vodka.

In Which There Is Value In Everyone

Okay, so Geo and I have lived on our street for 26 years. During our time here I have seen the same mentally challenged man with the slightly-too-short pant legs and baseball cap, carry his tote bag past our house on his way home almost every day.

I have watched him age, and yet not age. He looks the same to me except maybe a little grayer. Every day he walks down and up our steep hill. I mean, like 80 degree, crazy-ass, billy goat steep hill. Every day. Twice a day, he makes that trek past our house.

And yet I have never spoken to him.

I don't know why. He seems perfectly gentle, fragile even. Maybe I'm afraid I'll rattle or upset him by approaching him. I don't know. It's ridiculous. I've "known" him for 26 years, but I don't even know his name or where he lives or where he works.

Every time I see him walk by, my heart breaks a little for him. I worry he will be alone with no one to love him. I assume he lives with his parents who are probably aged. Does he have a sister or brother? Will they take care of him? What if his parents die? What happens to him then?

He kind of makes me cry.

But then I think, Dude, you are awesome! You have a job. You have an air of contentment in your simplistic approach to life that is enviable. You have a sense of truth about you. An honesty missing from most of us. Of course this is me projecting a phantom reality onto this familiar stranger, but the fact is he has a productive life.

And that thought warms my heart.

And then I think about my nephew, Jon who is autistic, and how peaceful his outlook on life is, and how much I want to protect him from the nasty in the world, and how very, very proud I am of him and his accomplishments thus far.

He, too, has a job working with kind people who genuinely like him and look after him. He, too, has an air of contentment in his simplistic approach to life that is enviable. He, too, has a sense of truth and honesty about him. And I know for a fact he is loved by his family, especially his sister who surprised herself by how much she missed him when she was in Japan. And I hope for him to one day meet a special woman who will look past his affliction and love him for the lovely human being he is.

Yeah, one of these days I'm going to say hello to my familiar stranger, and maybe tell him how he gives me hope for my nephew.