Hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving! How cool was I?

As you may have noticed, I stopped blogging for a few days on the matter of the Mid East conflict. Hope I didn't leave too many hanging. I'll be back on that this week. Instead, I spent my Thanksgiving enjoying my family and scribbling down an idea I had for a book that's been swimming in my head for awhile. I was just lacking a few key components, like, what, when, why and where. Nothing major :)

Now that I finally got it down in writing, I can play with it some more. I re-wrote the entire second chapter as a matter of fact and added chapter three. Four will be on it's way this evening or the next day depending. I have to catch up on all the work that I missed on Friday. You know, the job that actually pays me for doing something and going somewhere.

Then this week it's back to the mid east conflict. I have to say, reading all of the history has certainly put some ideas in my head on how to flesh out the characters in my book. So, if you're still interested in the Mid east and can't wait for me to get on tearing it apart while I jot down my little dream of being a writer, please go back to the older posts on the mid east situation and read any of the sources that I posted. It's all fascinating. At least if you love history like me.

If you can hold off on the seriousness a bit and don't mind reading some fiction, hop over here and indulge in some amateur writing.

By the way, I did leave the comment section open there. Since I've been posting all sorts of interesting stuff on this blog and leaving myself open for any who-ha that decides they know better than me or just interesting comments from my friends, I figured I could take the criticism and not curl up in a ball and die if anyone doesn't like it. Like most of what I write, it's about me. Selfish I know, but it's me enjoying two of my favorite hobbies put together: reading and writing.

Ok, motorcycles are actually my favorite hobby, but since it's colder than a polar bear's ass here this time of year, and yes, I am a fair weather rider, AND the motorcycle will simply not fit in the office space, nor does it come with an Ethernet adapter for the computer, reading and writing, by necessity, have booted the motorcycle from the top space until sometime in at least March. Unless I go down to my bro's in Tucson where we can rent bikes and drive into the desert until night time where I can then experience freezing my ass off in the desert instead of some back road of Missouri.

Did I tell you that I also play the guitar? I am multi-talented. Ok..I'm good, but Metallica nor George Straight will be knocking on my door and I have been known to make Jimi Hendrix turn over in his grave. Be that as it may, I can actually strum a tune or two and have folks actually know what I'm trying to play.

Except for "Freebird". I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I actually detest that song. Why? You try growing up on the plains of Kansas and Missouri, attending keg parties out of the back of pick up trucks with big ass bonfires and have twenty drunk redneck guys come over and ask you to play the song, over and over and over again, so they can stand around in their holy jeans, beat ass sneakers, Metallica T-shirts underneath a flannel shirt, slopping their beer out of plastic cups they stole out of their mom's cabinet, or acting like they are cool by punching a hole in the top of their beer can and then one in the bottom, trying to guzzle it as it pours out, so it can slosh out all over them and anyone standing by, then smashing the cup or the can on their foreheads while making the "rock and roll forever sign" of the thumb, index finger and pinky, shouting "FREEBIRD!"

Did I just say how much I really hate that song?

Alright, my youth did not traumatize me. At least, not too much, but there is only so many times you can repeat an episode before beginning to think that you are stuck in a time warp. Oh yeah, other traumatizing song: Time Warp.

Let's do the time warp again....
Let's do the time warp again....
It's a step to the left...
Then a step to the right...

That's it. That's all I care to remember. Tim Curry in bikini underwear and a garter belt was just a little too much for my mind. As a matter of fact, the first time I saw that movie I was on a date and the theater was doing a marathon "Rocky Horror Picture Show" complete with the weird people who showed up dressed like the characters and stood up in front of the screen acting out the parts. Toast anyone? If you don't know what I'm talking about then you've never had the experience of having toast come flying over your head at a movie theater. Did I tell you that was a one and only date with that guy?

Ummm...ok, now that I've written that little diatribe, I realize that some of my readers may have enjoyed just such a moment. No offense anyone. It's just that I was a bit backwards back then. Not nearly as outgoing as I am today.

Back to the rednecks in the field. I just wanted to say to my city bound readers. WE DO NOT DO COW TIPPING!

Umm...I know that was a little forceful, but I can't tell you how many times, while living in Philly, somebody found out I was from the great Midwest and asked me if I went "cow tipping."

News flash. I even lived on a farm and we never heard of this. The first time somebody asked me, I thought they were full of crap. Like when your grandpa asks you if you want to go "snipe hunting". If you don't know what that is, don't ask. Just tell the person that asks you, "NO!" You'll be safe and relatively, psychologically sound.

So I asked my friend, "Cow tipping?" "Yeah," he said. "You know, when you go into the field and find a sleeping cow and push it over?"

Uh...no dumbass, I don't know. Were you drunk? Smoking something that was laced with something? Who the hell goes into a field and tips cows, for the love of Pete?

Another news flash. Where I'm from, we don't play with our food before we eat it. Just a redneck thing I guess.

Oh..did I tell you that I was chased by a cow when I was ten? Yeah. A big black Angus cow named "Ida". She chased me clean across my grandparents' field where I ran into a slat fence that was missing the bottom slat, so I practiced my "on fire" technique of "stop, drop and roll" under the fence. I looked back to see one of my uncles had bulldogged the bitch. Then I looked down and saw that I was still holding a handful of alf-alfa which is why she was chasing me.

Another pointer here from the land of the red, white and red: drop the food before you start walking. You don't know what might decide to follow you.

Did I tell you that I like my steak medium rare? No? How about after that little episode, when grandpa took the calves off to market, it didn't bother me a bit. Little calves turn into big cows and big cows are stupid and mean. Or, just stupid and that can be dangerous itself. I had more than one nine hundred pound bovine step on my foot. Let me tell you, that really sucks when you're wearing your favorite ked tennies. Hurts like hell. And the stupid bastards will just stand there, too, no matter how much you push and shove.

I like my steak medium rare.

Chickens, too. Not medium rare, but I don't mind eating them. My grandparents kept some for laying hens and, when we stayed with them, we had to take our turn getting the eggs. Let's just say I was never fast enough. Those evil birds from hell would peck the hell out of my hands before I could even get one egg. I always tried to bribe my youngest brother to go do it for me. He was like Mikey. He'd do anything. Eat anything, too. We were kind of mean I guess. We'd make "mud pies" literally and my youngest brother would eat them. I always told him that's why he's got rocks in his head.

Ok...maybe I was traumatized in my youth. Is there a doctor in the house?

Really, I was a nerd. I read all the time. My folks threatened to punish me by making me go to my room. Then they got smart and said they'd make me go to my room without a book. That was punishment. I was in band, too. I didn't play the guitar. I played the trumpet, third chair out of ten. Not bad considering I was the only girl in the whole brass section. All the other girls played flutes, clarinets and oboes. But I was still cool. As the third seat on the JV band, I had dibs when the marching band or senior orchestra were in need of a pair of lips. Then there was the summer I hung out with the jazz band at Crown Center where we got to play with some of the greats.

Ok..I was only cool with the folks I hung out with, but that was...you know...cool.

I was also cool for other reasons of course. My dad was a cop. Not just any cop, the officer in charge at Juvenile Court. That meant any number of Johnny Rebels were always sucking up to me. Looking for a contact. Mostly, I was just embarrassed when somebody asked me if my Dad was "Officer H...". umm...yeah..no..Why do you wanna know? I was certainly not going to tell pops that some career criminal was asking for my home phone number. After awhile, they figured out that I didn't play that game. But that was cool, too. A relief actually. The only problem was, I was the nerdy daughter of the top cop at juvy. Nobody, but nobody was inviting you to their party. Even other cops' kids.

Still, I was cool.

Ok...maybe it was because everyone wanted me to be their lab partner, or their composition partner, or their report partner. Whatever. Jocks and cheerleaders knew my name, but I still didn't hang with them. My friends were...nerds actually. Like me. Or worse. Two of the guys in our group literally blew up the one guy's parents' garage distilling rocket fuel. We went to the quiz-o-ramas at the colleges for math and history contests. I was in the Spanish club. We got top spot for our Spanish heritage display. Now I can say, "Como se llama?" (What is your name?) Me llama es Kat (My name is Kat). Que hora es? (what time is it?) Donde es la bano (banyo)? Where is the bathroom? Ayuda me! (help me! - very handy in Mexico I hear). Yo tengo hambre. (I am hungry)...Chenga tu madre (I'll let you figure that one out)

Ok...you get the drift. Just enough to get me in trouble, I'm sure. After that, I can read some Spanish and get the general drift, but fluency, even after three years, escapes me.

I was still cool. Alright..I was cool because I had a car. Not just any car, either. A 1978 Formula Firebird with a 400 Pontiac, glass packs, hurricane rims and an eight track/radio. No..It wasn't new when I owned it. Cassettes were big at that time, but that was ok. I just ripped off a few of my parents' eight tracks. Rick Springfield: I wish that I had Jesse's girl. How can I find a woman like that?

Dude...right here. Me. Pick me. What the hell? Jesse was a bit of an asshole. Guess the car wasn't a guy magnet after all. At least not the kind that wanted to date me. Mostly, they just wanted to race. The car was racing orange with a black stripe on the bottom of the car on the air molding that said "Formula" in silver letters. It had duel hood scoops back when hood scoops still had a reason to exist. With a 400 Pontiac and posi-transmission, it was hell on wheels and so was I. After seventeen years of being the "good girl", I was bad.

We would go down to the bottoms where all the warehouses were. Behind them was a flat road. Speaker road. It was blocked from the main road by the warehouses. That meant we could drag down there a good part of the night and never get caught. Well, until one night. We were hanging. I hadn't raced yet. Nobody asked that night. Our racing wasn't the "line up and take the next fool in line" variety. It was by arrangement between the car owners.

On this night, I was hanging at the top of the road with the rest of the crowd, leaning on my car and playing cool like Pinky Tuscadaro. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you are probably not old enough to be reading this blog. Try google. Anyway, I'm leaning on the car and some guy walks up and asks me if I had any "papers". "Papers? You want to race for papers? No way." The guy just sort of looked at me all confused and said, "Uh...no dudette. You know "papers"?" and he made a little rolling motion with his fingers.

Shit. I was still a square. Nope. No papers. I might be a bad ass with a lead foot, but drugs...nope. A ticket the pops would fix. Drugs was a major ass kicking. The car would go away and forget hanging on a Saturday. That was just a little to risky for me. And, considering the "old man" was the top cop at Juvy, I figured he'd seen it all, heard it all, smelled it all. "Sorry..no can do. Try those guys over there." He walked on and I looked over to where the cars were lined up getting ready to race. My middle bro, the one who's about 1.5 years younger than me, was talking to his two friends who had squared off against each other. Middle bro had a '78 Chevy Camaro. White with a big hood scoop in the center. The ass was jacked up with air shocks and he had the precursors to spinners for rims with hacked off glass packs as tailpipes. We were the ass kicking "H...s". But we really didn't hang with the same crowd. You know, he was two grades behind me and it was not cool to hang with the JV.

That night, he wasn't racing either. Probably the best thing that ever happened to us. Robbie Schneider was lined up with his blue metallic Chevelle, 1972. It had a white stripe down the middle and was jacked up in the back. He was sporting cherry bombs for tailpipes. They were loud as he sat at the line. His challenger was my bro's other friend, Eric Lombardo. He had a gold Nova. I don't remember the year, but it was when Novas were squared off and still had an engine. His Nova had a three speed on the tree (steegin column). I remember because, one night, we were all jacking around (one of the few nights that we hung out) and some gang members from down on central started chasing us and Eric's car dropped second gear. You ever try to take a clover exit off a highway while going 65 with only first and third gear? Aye carumba!

Anyway, the guys jump in their cars and start revving them up. The whole crowd, maybe a hundred people in about thirty cars, were getting behind them and yelling out stuff. "Don't drop a gear, Eric!" "Kick his ass, Robbie!" My bro's in between them, holding his arms up in the air and then he drops his arms and the tires are squealing, smoke is rolling and motors are screaming. It was like a scene out of American Graffiti. The only difference was that we were listening to Bon Jovi and not Buddy Holly.

They got about half way down Speaker, where the lighting isn't so good and most of what you could see were their taillights and the outline of the car occasionally as it passed under a light, when I could see Eric's taillights start fish tailing. Holy Shit! I thought we were going to see a big one right then. But Robbie puts the hammer down and pulls away and Eric pulls it out and they start going hell bent for leather towards the end of the road again. Then they reached about three quarters of the way down. All of a sudden, out of no where, these cop cars with their lights flashing and sirens blaring come pulling into the road blocking it off. Eric and Robbie hit their breaks and I thought I was going to see the big bang after all as both of them were fishtailing to a stop.

Did I say "Holy Shit?" already? You should have seen the chaos. Like somebody poured a can of gasoline on an ant hill. Everybody was running for their cars. We could hear more sirens coming. I looked over just long enough to make sure my bro was jumping in his car and I ran for mine. For a minutes I was kicking myself on having parked so close to the other road because it was far away while I was running. When I reached the car, there were cars all around so I ditched the idea of trying to open the door and did my one and only "Dukes of Hazard" entry through the window. Don't ask me how. Firebird windows are not really made for "Dukes of Hazard" entries. Do not try that at home! You could get hurt. A concussion even.

Anyway, I cranked the key and that's when I realized providence was looking out for me. Being so close to the road, I wasn't blocked in like some of the others. I just threw it in reverse and got the flock out of there, only checking in my rearview mirror long enough to make sure my bro was behind me. We made like bats out of hell down some back roads until we hit Peter's Drive-in. That was the "IN" place when we were cruising. Everybody wanted to be seen there. The smart people go there early and got a space. The rest of us usually had to content ourselves with driving through the pick up window and waving at anyone that we knew before cruising on. Usually, though, I didn't like sitting. I wanted to run so Peter's was only good for a coke and a wave.

That night, we got there and the place was a little empty. Most of the known folks were still back at Speaker road trying to get the hell out of there before the cops busted them. So, we parked side by side and a couple other friends showed up. We got some fries and some cokes and then laughed about how we'd barely missed out on that catastrophe. This was long before cell phones by the way, so we didn't have anyway to know what happened with Eric and Robbie until morning. Not that we cared. We were invinvcible and immortal.

A little bit after midnight, we knew we had to get on home. Our curfew was 1 AM. Yeah, I was eighteen then, but it didn't matter. I lived in their house and school wasn't over yet. We drove in laughing and joking about the raid and my dad comes to the door and flips the porch light on. "Where've you two been?" Deer in headlights. We weren't too damn good at lying, even for teenagers. "Umm...we were down at Peter's drive in." I reached in and grabbed my "Peters" cup as nonchalantly as I could and took a sip out of it. Butter would not have melted in my mouth. Dad kept looking at us for a minute and then he said, "you sure you weren't down on Speaker Road? They busted some of your friends down there. I heard it on the radio (the policeman's radio)." Cough..sputter...kaw.."Sorry...ice. I sucked a piece of ice up the straw. Um...no Dad, we were up at Peters most of the night and cruising around." Fingers crossed behind the door of the car.

"Damn good thing. Everybody they could catch got tickets and some boys had their cars towed. I would've been pissed if I had to take care of some tickets or get your cars out of lockup. Well, just don't stand there. Get in the house. Your letting the mosquitoes in."

"Ok, Dad. We'll be right in. Just let me lock up my car." He walked in and middle bro and I exchanged looks across the tops of our cars. Phew! That was a close call.

I always felt bad for my youngest bro. He was three years behind my middle bro. By the time our Dad got through with us, he had vowed to never buy another one of his kids a sports car again. And since youngest bro was the only one he had left, he was getting screwed.

Do you know what a Dodge Omni is?