Yaye and Tallulah: May 2006

What Have Yaye and Tallulah Been DOING All Week?!

"My name's The Teacher,
That is what I call myself.
And I have a lesson
That I must impart to you."
-- Jethro Tull

Tallulah's Recurring Dream

At least once a month I have the same dream theme where I walk into an upscale restaurant, only this time it was an upscale airport bar. Seated around me in animated discussions are men of wealth, casually dressed. When I walk in, they give me a look as if I don't belong, I always leave. I feel very insecure and walk outside to get some fresh air. The air is always balmy...then panic sets in...people are running for cover, I'm always the last to know. At the instant I recognize something has gone terribly wrong, I look out to the horizon and I can see devastating winds coming towards me. My mind says it's a hurricane. All the buildings are locked down, people at the door turn their backs and won't let me in.

In my dream I utter, "Well f**k you too, you rat bastards" then look for the strongest tree. I wrap my body around this tree, holding on as tight as I can facing the wind, daring it to knock me down. I watch the wind race towards me destoying everything in its path...It reaches me, I feel the g-force pressure against me, I'm trying to scream into the wind, my favorite two word phrase, F-You...the wind catches inside my mouth...it takes my breath away...but my mind is still screaming. The wind finally subsides after what seems like an eternity, I am still clutching the tree, I have scrapes, bruising and cuts from the bark, but I am okay. I survive.

According to this dream dictionary http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary

To dream of blowing winds, symbolizes your life force, energy, and vigor. It reflects changes in your life.

To dream of strong or gusty winds, represents turmoil and trouble for you. You are experiencing much stress in some waking situation.

To see a hurricane in your dream, indicates sudden and/or unexpected changes occurring in your life. You may be experiencing some destructive and powerful emotions.

To dream that you are swept up the hurricane, suggests that both your mental and emotional forces are building up inside and making themselves known. You may be literally consumed by your emotions.

Yeah...no sh*t

Why is this woman happy? She's discovered The Magic Cone!!

THIS POST IS NOT FOR THOSE SQUEAMISH ABOUT THE BIOLOGICAL INTRICACIES OF THE FEMALE EXPERIENCE. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. YAYE.

Ladies, kiss those urinary tract infections goodbye! For now there is The Magic Cone!!!

Described as "a disposable urinal funnel" for females, this is better than the ioBrush!! I can't tell you on how many occasions this little gadget would have come in oh so handy in my 20's! Back when my girlfriends and I used to think it was "funny" to hang out in skank hole dives, drinking, carousing, flirting with bartenders - fun, fun fun - that is, until nature came a-calling. Oh the nauseating indignities and bloated suffering we had to withstand! But no more!! The hovering squat is a thing of the past. The clenched legs hop is behind us. We must always, always keep a supply of these on hand!

So simple, yet so brilliant. It's a miracle, I tell ya!

Tallulah's Home...and it's not California..still i sad

Oh it gets so lonely
When youre walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues
So I bought me a ticket
I caught a plane to spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading rolling stone, reading vogue
They said, how long can you hang around?
I said a week, maybe two,
Just until my skin turns brown
Then Im going home to california
California Im coming home
Oh will you take me as I am
Strung out on another man
California Im coming home

Chorus:
Oh it gets so lonely
When youre walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the warAnd the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as l am?
Will you take me as l am?
Will you?

Just got home...I need Joni Mitchell right now and it's been years since I've listened to her. The grass has grown, the kitchen a mess...but I'm home, I'm home and tomorrow I will catch my breath and finish a book and try desperately to breathe. I miss my Yaye...

California, I am feeling quite meloncholy. It's not the land of milk and honey it once was...if it really ever was.

Men at Work in Mrs. Yaye's Neighborhood

I am so annoyed. The family that owned our house before us lived in it for 16 years. During that time, they opted to sell off a piece of land on which my neighbors to the left (if you're standing in front of my house) reside. Okay, that happened a long time ago, I don't mind. Here's the rub...

When my husband and I first saw our home it had this huge, wide open side yard (on the right side) which abutted a deep thicket of trees. We loved this. After apartment dwelling for years, it was an amazing dream come true to find so much privacy and space. The sellers assured us that the owner of the tree thicket didn't mind the land being used by owners of this house (after all they had been using it for 16 years!), and that, barring an Act of God, we could count on those trees staying there forever.

We closed on this house in January 2003. By July 2003, the lovely thicket of trees had been sold to a real estate developer. Needless to say, the trees were all slaughtered and a two-story colonial set high on the hill was built. For our dogs as much as a need for privacy, we ended up building a 6-foot fence on the border of our properties. It's one of those situations that you just have to learn to live with, but you still feel a resounding sting about it from time to time.

Well something much worse is now happening just two doors down. A 7-acre plot of virgin woods has been flattened and a developer is currently building 14 homes there. That's a whole new neighborhood being built!

And the wooded area at the back of our property is directly connected to the plot being developed - so we can surely look forward to the better part of 14 more families accessing the woods. The potential for tweenage mayhem in our peaceful little woodland is verging on inevitable.

Just to rub a little salt in the wound, the sign pictured above was plonked down in front of my house today. I am so annoyed!!

Yaye, the Boxing Queen

In Tallu's previous post she asked if I remembered the story that went along with a keepsake she found in her mother's house. Truth is, I have no memory of it at all. As she recounted the tale to me, it was as though she was talking about the actions of strangers. This happens to me with some frequency. I have lost so much of my past.

I've moved from place to place my entire life. When I was a child, in the hands of my mother and her husband, I managed to attend seven different elementary schools in Ventura and Los Angeles counties from 1973 to 1977. As you might imagine, this resulted in some big ole gaping holes in my education and social life. My recurring childhood fantasy was to be reunited with friends I had to leave behind. This has almost never happened.

Upon graduating from school, I left Los Angeles and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where both my sisters were living at the time. I stuck it out for just under a year, returning to L.A. Five years later, a professional opportunity moved me to New York City. Although I technically spent one year living in an apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey, my life stayed in New York for six years. With a live-in boyfriend in tow, I then moved to Portland, Maine, spending four years there, before moving down here to Connecticut after meeting the man who is now my husband. With the exception of New Jersey, in each state I made several local moves from apartment to apartment.

So, I've been around.

Over the years, I've developed this survival technique of boxing up the past I'm leaving in order to focus on my latest destination. I usually have to sit on the boxes to force them to close - and often need to hammer in several long, spiky nails to keep them shut tight. Yet I have become so skilled in this practice that I can hardly pry open my memories to recall the streets and towns I used to know; and even the names and faces of people I once befriended become less and less distinct all the time.

Thankfully, I kept journals for many of those years, so I do have a record to help jog my memory and keep certain stretches of time clear. (Of course, I mostly keep those journals boxed up, as well.) But during the hardest, most painful times, I was unable to keep a journal, and I find that those periods are the fuzziest blurs. Obviously, I'm pretty good at protecting myself from pain.

This brings me to the image above. This was the last lobby poster I created for my previous employer, the Warner Theatre. I quit the theater in January of '05 after a turbulent and exhausting three-year tenure, though I continued doing contract work for them through May of last year. Now here we are a full year later.

And although I still feel burnt out from my experience there, I think I'm finally ready to pull out some of this past and reclaim it. I'm tired of living with all these bulging boxes and the worry that one of them will just burst open when I least expect it, like the Spanish Inquisition.

So, here we are, one wee box partially pried open. Let's see how it goes.

As Tallulah heads out to the airport...

Tallu finds a card that Yaye made her buy way back in 1987... there is a reason...Yaye do you know why? Funny enough, Tallu found this card nestled between her mother's 2003 tax return and a smooshed snicker bar.

Crazy....

LIVE! The Droogs, The Sterilles and the Denver Mexicans

Wow, Imagine what the flyer would have looked like had there been a computer involved....

This one goes out to Lyfie and Haley Mills

On January 19, 1988 my buddy and I sat in my bedroom with guitars and wrote a song about our hero Haley Mills. And it goes something like this: ah 1, ah 2wah, ah 3ya , ah 4ya... ps: So glad that Yaye and I found you again... sincerely Tallulah

Here's a story 'bout a young New Zealand Girl
Who sailed cross the ocean
to the wonderful world
Disneyright after Wild Kingdom
Marlon Perkins and then some

(chorus) Hail oh Haley Haley Mills
To hell with Tom Dooley and Beverly Sills
I ain't had no worries I ain't had no ills
Since I had a hankerin' fer.... Haley Mills
I ate a cheeseburger with no cheese on it
Don't like Parkay but I'll eat Blue Bonnet
You inspired a whole BUNCH
Of shakespeares sonnets
It ain't Dutch Cleanser it's Haley's Comet

Sittin' out back smokin' pure Havana
Ma says Walt's on the phone
Yo got Pollyanna
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
If you must return it you can send it here

(chorus) Hail oh Haley Haley Mills
To hell with Tom Dooley and Beverly Sills
I ain't had no worries I ain't had no ills
Since I had a hankerin' fer.... Haley Mills
I ate a cheeseburger
with no cheese on it
Don't like Parkay but I'll eat Blue Bonnet
You inspired a whole BUNCH
Of shakespeares sonnets
It ain't Dutch Cleanser it's Haley's Comet

The First Day of Junior High

I can't tell you who's who. But inscribed on the back of the photo it states: First Day of Junior High...could this be 1978(?)

Oh the 70s

Tallulah's mom and dad...

Oh Yaye is Just Distracting Herself

Your Famous Movie Kiss is from Gone With The Wind

"Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar."

What Famous Movie Kiss Are You?

We Had Joy, We Had Fun...Yaye's Season

You Are Fall!

Thoughtful
Expressive
Creative
Poetic
Smart

What Season Are You?

Yaye Should Turn Right at Greenland

You Belong in London

A little old fashioned, and a little modern.
A little traditional, and a little bit punk rock.
A unique woman like you needs a city that offers everything.
No wonder you and London will get along so well.

What City Do You Belong In?

Charm CAN be Cultivated!

Now if that's not a demure handling of the watering can I don't know what is!

My Uncle's Army Personal Conduct Manual 1949

I would love to see how flashy these pamplets must be now! Talk about your Arial Narrow Bold centered with the basic no nonsense line. But one must not judge a book by the cover because you never know what kind of goodie lies inside.

Old Hollywood....

My first morning back home with my Mom

Tallulah, West Coast Bureau Chief

I am in California at the moment, visiting my mom and tidying up some loose ends as I embark down a very slippery slope with my mother.

I arrived last night and my perpetually stressed out family had an extra dose of hi-octane adrenaline rushing drama...they lost my itinerary and couldn't remember when I arrived which fueled frenzied phone calls to the east coast and everyone was mad at me before I even arrived. I did nothing wrong, I sent my itinerary to my brother who, with his printer could have wallpapered the whole house with my itinerary. But they don't think that way...deep breaths.

Picked up at the airport shuttle depot, where everyone complained, I got in the car trying desperately to be cordial and arrived to the only home I ever lived in during childhood. And there was my mom. Waiting for me with that harried stressed out look, wanting so desperately to be relaxed enough to welcome me home, but so upset by the itinerary incident that there were no hugs...just pizza (I was starved - and it was excellent)

I fought back tears as I looked at her. She is tiny, hunched over, drawn, half the woman I saw 6 months ago. Her hair eskew, her eyes dull...the ravages of Alzheimers is certainly digging it's long talons deep within her. I am trying desperately to be optimistic.

I am here to clean out closets and preserve family history so she doesn't throw it away. I began this morning in her bedroom closet. One of my finds is my father's family "geneology" notebook. Pictured above is a hand tinted photo of my great grandfather fishing in New York. I guess a bunch of my father's side of the family settled in New York and Connecticut...who knew?

The First Morning Without Gatsby

Friday through Monday of this past week have been four of the saddest days of my life. That goes for my husband Mr. Y too.

Early Friday morning, our beautiful but unpredictable redbone coonhound Gatsby attacked Mr. Y as he was sitting on the edge of our bed in his underwear petting the dog. I was right behind him, and witnessed the whole thing. Gatsby didn't even issue a warning growl. He took a chunk of my husband's hand and managed to bite both arms and his right thigh, and clawed his torso, including a large gash on his chest. Our other dog Lily jumped in to protect Mr. Y and, of course, I flew to my feet and screamed at Gatsby. He stopped his attack.

It was so fast. Just seconds.

Blood was gushing from my husband's wounds and we rushed into the bathroom to administer First Aid. After applying Hydrogen Peroxide and Neosporin and securing bandages, we threw on our clothes and drove to our closest ER (actually, it's the only hospital in town) where Mr. Y's wounds were treated more extensively. We had to tell our shocking story to the triage nurse, the nurse technician, the attending physician and some other lady in scrubs who came in. The consensus among hospital staff was we had a dangerous dog that would need to be put down.

Our Gatsby.

After picking up my husband's prescription for antibiotics, we returned home. When I went upstairs, Gatsby was waiting at the doggie gate in the doorway to our bedroom. He was anxious to make nice and nuzzled my hands as I retrieved my address book so I could make some calls to deal with the situation. He was so gentle in his nuzzling. I ducked into our second bedroom and started sobbing. Honestly, I've hardly stopped crying since.

Being a stoic, my husband trudged off to work shortly after we got back, first courageously harnessing and leashing Gatsby and leading him and Lily out to the doggie yard. He didn't want me to have to do that on my own.

Because we had heard that dogs sometimes bite when they are suffering from an undiagnosed injury or even an ear infection, I called our vet to inquire. My answers to their resulting questions left little doubt that this was not the case. Gatsby had not been exhibiting any behaviour that suggested injury or illness. I made an appointment to have him checked out anyway. The earliest slot they could offer was 5:15 Monday evening.

I then called the shelter from which we adopted Gatsby last October. I hoped that they would be willing to take him in, maybe they knew more about behavioral issues and could handle a dog like him. I was deluding myself, but it did offer some brief relief to think that maybe he could still be saved.

But the verdict from the extremely compassionate woman who runs the shelter was the same. The only option was to euthanize. Once a dog has attacked a person the way Gatsby had, he will certainly do it again. And honestly, he'd shown aggression before. He constantly bullied Lily, was overprotective of his food bowl, lunged at me several times and nipped me on the thigh once. We'd just convinced ourselves that it was under control with hand feeding and night crating. And, certainly, his aggression had never reached this level before.

I don't want to just discuss his aggression, because this dog was also unbelievably sweet, gentle, funny, cuddly and smart as a whip. So expressive, as hound dogs are, he could wring your heart with a look over his shoulder. He was stately and athletic and always ready to GO! We had at least a dozen nicknames for him: Mr. Wiggles, Houndini (escape artist), Moosh, Cinnamon Dog, TK (short for teakettle, the noise he made all the time) and more. When either Mr. Y or I would come home and approach the doggie yard, Gatsby would run to the gate and excitededly leap straight up and down like a giant amber frog. We loved this dog. He was part of our family.

We'd been advised that the best way to get through the weekend with him was to keep our distance and try to segregate him best we could, so that neither we nor Lily would be at risk for attack. We modified our behaviour, we were careful, but we couldn't make his last days that grim. We put ourselves at risk.

Sadly, he showed us that the experts were right. Sunday evening, Mr. Y put his guard down and allowed Gatsby to lie on the bed next to him while watching a hockey match. At one point, Gatsby lunged at Mr. Y and started growling at him for no reason. My husband wanted to spare me this information, so I unwittingly let my guard down the following morning -- yesterday morning, the morning of the evening that he would be leaving us -- and I encouraged Gatsby to cuddle up to me in bed one last time. He did and was his sweet, gentle self, all soft amber eyes and nuzzle nose. Then, just like that, he made a quick move for my hand, I pulled it back and he started growling at me. It was heartbreaking.

All day yesterday, we were zombies. But we wanted to make his last day as nice as it could be. My husband stayed home from work, we took the dogs on several walks around the neighborhood and into the woods. We fed Gatsby as many Mother Hubbard cookies as he wanted. He was served a special grilled hot dog meal. And we, as a family, got into the car at quarter to 5 and drove to the vet. We walked the two dogs around the parking lot and surrounding area to help calm them both, and entered the building at 5:10 p.m.

There was paperwork and payment and waiting. Lily was extremely nervous and high strung (she has a lot of experience at the vet), but Gatsby was mellow. He stayed close to us, let me give him a little puppy massage and did that unbearably endearing thing where he buries his head into my leg while I scratch his ears. The vet opened the door to the room and Mr. Y and Gatsby went in while Lily and I waited.

It was so fast. Just seconds.

Yaye REVEALED brought to you by Tallulah

From the Urban Dictionary
1. Yaye:

A typo by someone who is too excited and hits the "e" key while going for the "!" key by mistake.

Yaye Laments the Trolling of Sheen

Schnark, You Say? I'll Give Ya Schnark!

I'm about to toss away any intellectual credibility I may have inadvertently accrued and expose myself as the part-time celebrity gossip loser I secretly am. Oh well.

Musta been about 1987. One of my saucy girlfriends was throwing yet another in a long string of parents-are-out-0f-town parties, no memory of where or when, but we thought it would be fun to invite Charlie Sheen. No, we weren't acquainted with the actor. But we lived in the same city (Los Angeles) and someone had gotten their hands on his contact info. We invited. He didn't show. No surprise. We were mildly bummed because we thought he was a cool cutie who would liven up the party.

Zoom forward to today. 2006. Nearly 20 years later. (Eeek!) On The Smoking Gun, I just read the detailed statement Denise Richards recently filed in support of the divorce and custody settlement she is pursuing with ol' Charlie. Yikes!! Now Tallulah will tell you, I always take these personal-gone-public stories with heaping handfuls of salt, withholding judgement until all the evidence is in. (Hell, I even withheld judgement against O.J. until the end of the trial!)

But I know Denise is telling the truth! I'm not saying this just because Charlie ignored me and my silly girly pals way back when. It's because the proof is in the pudding, my friend. Look at that face - that scary troll face he's built, leer by leer, over the past 20 years. This was once a verrrry cute boy back in his Ferris Bueller days, and as we know, he comes from some very cute genetic stock (Martin is still adorable). This is a tragedy and one that has been caused by some superlatively sleazy livin'!

My dear Parco, Tallulah, recently posted a most disturbing image of Keith Richards, whom she refers to as King Troll. But, you know, Keith never had much to work with in the looks department, he was dealt a tough hand. But Charlie and his other troll pals, Robert Downey, Jr. (oh the pain of including him in this company), Christian Slater and Billy Idol are walking, trolling cautionary tales of the costs of excess - sexual, alcoholic and chemical - because they were once luminously lovely boys who have devolved into skin-crawling, creepy creeps!

It ain't pretty, brothers and sisters. It ain't pretty.

Sir Schnarkest McCheezWhiz

Yaye's All-Time Favorite

I have always adored this picture of Tallulah and Son from Mother's Day 1992! One of the cutest and happiest EVER!

A Vision of PURE Happiness

The innocence of Childhood

A cute teeter from years ago....

It's Cowboy Yayo!

If you look carefully in the background, the TV is playing his favorite movie of that day: Old Yeller...see Travis and Ma (Dorthy Macguire).

Look at those cute little cheeks and big brown eyes...oh...how I miss the little feller who's now the big brute teenager.

CALL!

A Gatsby in Leaves

I raise you 1 totter and 2 teeters

Here's Louis J. Dog taken just two weeks ago, clearly my darlin' pup is full fledged D O G

Yaye's Turn to Teeter the Totter with Cuteness

Uh Tallu...I NEED to bring some sunshine to this page that is edging toward creepiness. So here's my dog Lily when she was an impossibly cute puppy.

Awwww...that's better.

Just say no Keith....just say no

Even Satan's favorite son is no match for a Palm Tree. While Lucifer's 62 (or is it 162) year old rocker, was vacationing in Fiji over the weekend, Mr. Richards thought climbing a palm tree was a safe sport for the perpetually unbalanced swaying Stone. He, of course, fell out of the tree and bumped his head, and they couldn't put him back again...well that was until they transfused his blood from a chupacabra.

Just goes to show you, a rolling stone gathers no palm.

I know that Yaye will at some point request I take the bottom photo off and if she does I will agree with her. However, I think he'll have a heck of a new career if he partners up with Wes Craven.

Kids...just say no to drugs.
Or you'll end up looking like him!
He may be the coolest stone, he's also the scariest.

Gasbuddy Is Yaye's Pal

Tipped off by Amanda Congdon at Rocketboom, I checked out Gasbuddy.com. It's soooo cool! Using a color-coded system, Gasbuddy offers the USA National Gas Temperature Map with red indicating the most expensive gas prices and dark green the cheapest. Interesting cost distribution - the coasts are clearly being hosed by the oil industry. On the homepage you can enter your zip code and retrieve a lowest to highest list of gas prices in your area. I did a local search and discovered that the lowest rate in my area is currently $2.95 at a station on my normal shopping route. This is good information!

How do they do it? "(Gasbuddy.com) is a network of more than 173+ gas price information web sites that helps you find low gasoline prices. All web sites are operated by GasBuddy and has the most comprehensive listings of gas prices anywhere."

Check it out!