Got monkeys?

Hello lemurs! I have found it. I didn't even know it was lost. Marketing works best when it suggests to you products or services that you didn't even know you needed!! LK can attest to this -- while we were in Staples Superstore (SUPERstore!) some weeks ago (ostensibly) shopping for wedding invitation kits (we're the doityourself couple, you know), I discovered quite to my surprise that there are any number of electronic gizmos, gadgets and whoosis's that I have been suffering without all these years. Suffering! Without knowing! Who knew? Certainly not me! Until now.

Now that's successful marketing. Now, I forget how I found it, or why I wound up googling the word monkey, but I have found it...MonkeyGoods.com! Not just 100 monkeys, no sir. Many more than that. This links to their online (downloadable!!) catalog replete with monkeyphernalia. I like that word that I just coined. And the best part, aside from the goofy products and their equally goofy descriptions (see below for some of my favorites) is the repeated and endlessly cumulatively amusing use of the word monkey. Monkey monkey monkey! Words with 'k' in close proximity to 'y'? Always funny. If it had been "Planet of the Monkeys," nobody would have taken them seriously. Nobody takes a monkey seriously....until it's too late. "Spooky monkey"? Not scary at all! (Monkey).

Anyway, here are some of my favorites (taking time from this endless report to enjoy the monkey catalog, but not that much time...)

Cast Iron Monkey Bottle Opener w/Fez With Fez!!! Because without the fez it would be really stupid. I love the first line of description: The next time someone asks for a bottle opener, don't just hand them some wimpy item from your kitchen drawer. Let a fez-topped simian do the trick. I like the implication that a fez-topped simian is somehow less wimpy than his fez-less (fez-free?) compatriots. Hard to associate a fez with a position of strength. (Words with 'z' in them, also always funny).

Screaming Chimpanzee ("chimpanzee" funnier than "chimp" because of the 'z' but not as funny as "monkey"). The description needs some editing but is funny anyway: You either love this sound making chimps [sic] or you go running from the room in fear. Screaming chimps are obviously a polarizing thing. Everyone knows that.

Okay, one more. Ceramic Sproing Monkey Oh dear: This little guy not only looks cool but jumps around on his own spring with the slightest vibration. Isn't that sort of obvious? Goodness knows he can't very well jump around on someone else's spring. That would be, um, just wrong.

I could do this all day but end of day promises must be kept. Go forth and monkey, lemurs.





posted by MT at 2:11 PM |

Here's what I do...

I behave as if the time that elapses between NOW and LATER actually transforms me into separate people who are really in competition with each other. Like that classic episode of the Simpsons when Homer opens his Emergency Donut box to find it empty, with a note that reads: Dear Homer, I owe you one donut. Signed, Homer. And he says "Damn, he's always one step ahead of me!"

It's like that.


I set myself up for anxiety, as if there isn't enough anxiety there already. I won't assemble that miasma of papers into a recognizable pile of useful information now! It's nearly six. That's for Tomorrow Me to handle. I won't follow up on that phone call now. It could disrupt my carefully laid plans for the rest of the day! Tomorrow Me will take care of it, first thing. And if he doesn't, that's his sorry ass, not mine.

If it isn't a definable pathology it must surely be listed in a DSM footnote somewhere. Or maybe everyone does it.

Either way, it is a damned funny way to behave.

posted by MT at 11:26 PM |

The loneliest night of my life...

was Saturday night, sleeping in our bed with LK off in Santa Fe. I'm back, and our time away didn't afford much time to log on (actually, NO time to log on) but you were in my thoughts as I tried to recall all the fine details. The drive took us through Pittsburgh, East Lansing, Glencoe (outside Chicago), Missouri, Kansas, Denver (a slight detour through the rockies, woo hoo!) and finally NM in all it's purple mountained splendor.

But all of that comes later. For now, I am missing LK and terribly at that. On a bright note, V is staying with me for the week, and keeping me too busy to think of much else. Today, we rode bikes (twice, first in the am and then in the late afternoon) and we swam during the midday. She is teaching me the breast stroke and the butterfly; I suck at each. She is a small mermaid. We are having a blast, and it's important time for us because of all the wedding stuff that is looming large. We need our daddy-daughter time, to help repair some of the fallen structure surrounding all of my recent changes (moving, new lady, and all that entails).

And so I find myself in a strange lonely and yet very fulfilled place in my little present tense. Very dukkha, yes? Did I spell that right?

V is upstairs reading a book that LK got her a while ago. (Hopefully she has fallen off by now). Seems kind of appropriate somehow. I could do a lot worse than to have both of these beautiful ladies in my life, although neither is exactly where I would want them to be...


posted by MT at 10:38 PM |

"I've never been a rambler..."

Hello lemurs, sorry for the long absence. I haven't forgotten you. Actually, in the last couple of days much has happened, including the wonderful visit from Dr. Wendy and Arturo, but I'm in the process of packing for a sem-long vacation so no time to tell you about it yet. However, in the next week or so, I'll be traveling with LK out to Santa Fe. She has a 10-week gig with the Santa Fe Opera Company, and I'm taking the drive out with her to see the sights and meet some of her friends along the way (at least one of which, in Chicago I think, is throwing us an engagement party.) Since I'll have my laptop with me, I'll be updating when not driving. And maybe a little while driving, but mostly not. Safer that way.

So a little travelogue blog is what this space might be over the next week or so. Kind of like the trip to Japan last year, without the jet lag. (I presume).


posted by MT at 10:19 AM |