He's Here, The Phantom of the Oops I dropped it again

When was the last time you saw a silent movie? When was the last time you saw a silent movie on the big screen?


Friday night we had the chance to watch the original 1925 Phantom of the Opera. That's the original Phantom with Lon Chaney, the one that caused so much controversy when it was shown because women were fainting when the Phantom was first revealed.


It was a rainy night and the perfect way to kick of the Halloween Weekend - the "original" horror flick with a pipe organ accompaniment. We sat in the balcony and settled into the pew like seats, thinking that "I hope this is short because these seats are uncomfortable."


The lights dimmed and we were thrust into the past. Back to a time when this was the height of entertainment. When going to the movies was an experience. A time when seeing the phantom in all of it's gorrieness was something you had only imagined and never thought you would actually see.


Watching a silent movie with a huge pipe organ playing the score was amazing. Watching a silent movie on the big screen was amazing. The thing that bewildered me the most was that I didn't miss the dialog, after 10 or 15 minutes I completely forgot that there was no dialog.

The movie was so campy though, Christine fainted I don't know how many times and The Phantom killed someone just by tipping over a boat! All in all though, it was a great way to start the weekend.

Saturday night our neighbor had a big birthday/dinner party for his boyfriend. We had a blast drinking wine, sitting on the patio gabbing and eating birthday cake that had fallen off of the platter and onto the floor.

We had just finished singing Happy Birthday, the birthday boy blew out the candles, and when the host turned around to set the cake down he turned and stopped but Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion came into play: "...an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

It's true, we saw it happen and we laughed, laughed loudly and for much longer than we should have because we were drunk on wine!

The host was mortified, of course, and was concerned what his guests would think, I told him "You think this party is a flop because you dropped the cake, but I can guarantee you - people will be talking about this party for a LONG TIME." That made him smile, because he knew that was true!

Did you eat cake that had been on the floor this weekend?

I'm sick and tired

Wow, what a week it's been. Thank goodness we had the contest going to hold us over.

It really has been a crazy week, I can totally understand why Britney lost custody and visitation rights for her kids.

Like Brad & Angelina we decided to adopt a child, we didn't go to Cambodia, we went to the local kitty shelter and ended up walking out with a pussy in tow, we were so not ready for it to happen so quickly. We thought that it would take a few weeks and would require a lawyer so that we had plenty of time to think it through. I didn't even have time to paint the nursery.

Two days after Kitty arrived he started coughing and sneezing, two days later he was at the vet. The only thing was, I was sick at the same time. I didn't go to work Monday/Tuesday because I felt like crap, all I wanted to do was lay in bed and fantasize about Judge Judy getting it doggy style from Judge Mathis. It was maddening having to care for another while I was ill myself, I don't know how you Mothers do it?

Also during this same time frame my computer got sick as well. A friend came over and was downloading some things to my computer and ended up accidentally downloading a Trojan. All I can say is that those Trojans are nasty! But I seriously feel as though all of the "spyware & virus" software makers are colluding with the virus makers so that they can keep themselves in business.

My computer is so bad off that I have to restore it to Factory Default - which I think is Windows 3.1 or some other godforsaken version.

Fortunately the weekend has been fabulous. The weather has been perfect (who keeps saying that Global Warming isn't good for something?) We thought we had our last beach day two weeks ago, but today was a perfect day for it.

So even though it's been a sickening week, it was still a good week.

I will compile the answers for the contest and post the poll soon.

How was your weekend?

I'm Tired

WHAT a weekend! Whew!


All I can say is that I went to bed at 8:30 last night, I was so tired that I missed one of my fav shows "The Girls Next Door" and it was the episode where they were doing an exercise video!

When the alarm clock blared this morning at 6:12 (that gives me two 9 minute snoozes) I screamed NO louder than Jodie Foster did in The Accused when she was getting raped on that pinball machine, there was no way that almost 10 hours had passed, I didn't want to believe it, but I had to.

Lets go back in time.......It all started on Friday..........

Whenever Andi-licious comes into town it's a Par-Tay! And boy was this weekend a partay. Andi-licious flew in via private jet, sponsored by Southwest, Friday afternoon and was whisked away via my limo disguised as a Ford Focus through the mean streets of Chicago's South Side. The amazing thing, I only cursed 47 times on the way home, that was a record low number for me!

Friday afternoon we spent a few hours at Hollywood Beach (the notorious Gay Beach) getting free Microdermabrasion Treatments, courtesy of Mother Nature and the swirling sand.

The Roommate made a fabulous dinner which we ate on the deck and then enjoyed participating in Synphoria - WOW, what a night!

We almost got up with the sun on Saturday morning and spent the day recovering from the night before, while shopping for the last bits of odds and ends for the Husband Hunting party later that evening. Were all fortunate to be recipients of afternoon naps and and had the house in tip-top, ship-shape order just in time for our guests to arrive.


Little did we know that they would actually show up on time, the poor first guests thought the party started at 8:00 and thought showing up at 9:00 they wouldn't be the first ones....well surprise surprise they were right on time! We're never used to Queens showing up on time - but we were ready for them.


The Buffet was laid out in all of it's camoflauge glory, artfully decorated to blend in with the rest of the room, The Wii room was in "stadium mode" ready to take on all of the artful players, the Bar was set up, and the Tiki Torches were lit in the backyard!


Before we knew it the house was FULL, it was busting at it's seams, literally! We didn't get an official count but there were at least 80 to 90 people there!


We went through more than 150 pounds of ice, yes you read that right 150 pounds of ice! It was out of control, we had to send the troops out for more ice in the middle of the party!

We had birthday cake at 11:30 to which the crowd sung a version of Happy Birthday that rivaled Roseann Barr's rendition of The National Anthem - but it was sung with love and that's all that really matters.

I swear this is the last time I'm hosting a party and not hiring help. It seemed as though all I did was walk around and pick up trash, paper plates and cups. Would it kill any of those queens to put a plate in the trash can?

At 2:45 I asked The Roommate if it was time to shut down the party and kick the last of the remaining guests out onto the sidewalk in front of our house? He looked at me and said "well go to bed." I pointed to the futon that is in the kitchen and said "Well there's my bed." So he yelled with all his might "Michael wants to go to bed, so you've all got to go home" and I artfully added "It's also 2:45"

After we did a final sweep of the house and kicked the last of the partygoers out I pulled out the futon and fell into a fitful sleep.

Sunday was a day of recovery...sleeping late.....pulling the blinds to make the house as dark as possible and barely turning up the volume of the TV...it was bliss!

We somehow got Andi-licious back to the airport and made our way to a New Home BBQ at a friends house down the street.

The next thing I knew it was 8:00 and I could barely keep my eyes open!

A Weekend Recap with Lynda Carter

I know it's Wednesday and "Weekend Recaps" are supposed to be on Monday's but that's neither here nor there is it?

Friday - The day that I had been waiting weeks for arrived, we would soon be sitting face to face with the lovely Wonder Woman, er, I mean Lynda Carter! I had my front row tickets in my hand and could hardly wait to be sitting and staring into the lovely eyes of Wonder Woman! Oh how I hoped she would be wearing her Bracelets and her Lasso of Truth, had she ensnared me in her lasso I would be obliged to tell her that as a wee boy I watched her show every week and fell in love with her. Well I wouldn't say fell in love with her, I wanted to BE HER! I know, what little boy didn't want to be Wonder Woman.

But alas, I know that Lynda Carter is not really Wonder Woman, and I doubted that she would even acknowledge WW, but I still wanted to see her.

When we got to the theater I quickly found out that our so called Front Row Seats were not actually Front Row at all (Hey, I want my $65.00 + $10.50 convenience fee back) but instead we were the front row of the actual seats, there were tables and a swath of floor space about 15 feet between us and Wonder Woman, er Lynda! All I can say is that I'm glad that I didn't pop that money for those roses!

The theater probably holds about 450 people there are three "slices" to it and unfortunately only one slice was actually full, so there were about 100-150 people there.

Lynda has a good voice, not a great voice, but a good voice and she put on a very nice show. She sang "torch songs" and I knew most of them, which is always good. She sang for about an hour and a half, she did a little WW tribute where she spun around (but didn't change into her costume unfortunately), interacted with the audience and even did an encore.

She looks AMAZING and best of all, she seemed to have a really great time performing, to me that's the best part of it. For a performer to really be enjoying themselves means much more to me than whether they have 50 foot video screens and a thousand backup dancers.

Would I go see her again? Hmmm....I don't think so.....Would I buy a CD of hers? Probably.

Saturday - Today was the Great Lakes Clean Up Day so a friend and I headed over to our local Gay Beach, grabbed some blue gloves and trash bags and started picking up beach trash. NO, not the kind of beach trash you wouldn't take home to your mother, the other kind of beach trash - cigarette butts, cans, plastic, etc.

We had committed to working for an hour - because my friend had to go to work - so we got busy. It was also some other kind of "clean up day" so in addition to picking up trash, we had to count it as well. They wanted to see what the most picked up trash was.

We spent our hour combing the beach, picking, counting, throwing things in the bags, by the time we finished we had a nice collection of trash. As we walked back to the central table to turn in our trash I started counting: 136 cigarette butts, 15 soda caps, 23 pieces of food wrappers, amongst other pieces of trash etc.

The list they gave us had all sorts of things on it from Lobster Traps to Car Parts to 55 Gallon Drums, it was obviously a standard form so when I got back to the check-in table I pretended like we were on a scavenger hunt and told the little old lady "I'm still looking for that Lobster Trap and those condoms, can you point me in the right direction, I really want to win?" To which she gave me a look like a dog gives you when he hears a strange noise and cocks his head....I guess she didn't get my humor.

Sunday - I forget what happened on Sunday, must not have been that important!