Mom’s having two surgeries this week. Two. By Thursday, I shall be speaking in tongues and all of them will be asking for egg rolls and disinfecting wipes.
This Is A Long Distance Call
Author Archives: Tata
Right Time Somebody Outside the Door
Darla’s medical records paint a grim picture of three months in which the kitten’s survival was in doubt. Drusy, however, is interested in literature for literature’s sake.
When You Hit That High
So okay: frigging Cupcake Wars. A bakery in Princeton some time ago had up a sign declaring the bakers had won Cupcake Wars. Apparently, this made a big difference to the business because they have opened new stores. The woman sitting next to me at work, whom I refer to as my cellmate, is obsessed with cupcakes – obsessed, but really neurotic and a rule-follower. Funny, pleasant company, smart. So she reads on the front page of what passes for the local paper that House of Cupcakes has opened in East Brunswick. Let the obsessing begin.
Yesterday, by the time my supervisor followed the sound of my guffawing, I couldn’t breathe and Mira was in full obsessive mode. She was reading out flavors and showing pictures and creating What If scenarios. What if it’s crowded? What if we should wait until the second week? What if they’re really good? What if they’re not? I waited for her to decide we could just go there and find out, but that did not happen yesterday.
This morning, she went back to the website and found the House of Cupcakes opens every day at 10 a.m. I said we should drive out there at 9:30 and leave noseprints on the outside of the store. She said, “What if the only thing they have at ten o’clock is yesterday’s leftovers?” I was howling, but she was kind of serious. Anyway, the idea that we could actually walk out of the building, drive over there and walk in finally took hold, but then we had to ask our co-workers if they wanted cupcakes. Mira took orders and money. I was placed in charge of a particular co-worker’s detailed written request. We donned our sunglasses and walked out of the building into a brilliant day. It’s an adventure.
We drove over there and parked the car. We walked into the poorly organized store and I thought, ‘There’s nothing special about this. They’re small cupcakes,’ but Mira was chirping. She placed her extensive order. Another man placed an order. I placed the order for my detailed co-worker and picked something unassuming for myself. We collected our packages and left. It was still wonderful outside. We drove back to work, where I gave our co-worker her cupcakes, took mine and sat in my cubicle.
After about fifteen minutes, I became aware that something odd was happening in the distance, so I sat back and waited for it to come to me because it always does. Turned out the bakery had shorted Mira’s order by two cupcakes and now everyone felt awkward. I felt awkward because I’d eaten a cupcake that was actually crunchy with sugar and now I was making small yelping noises. Mira said she’d given away all the cupcakes, which left the obsessed party without the object of her obsession. I said, “Call and tell them they owe you a few.”
About an hour later and after I’d stopped running in circles, making airplane sounds, we again left the building, got in the car, drove down there, where the bakers gave her the two she was owed and five more for a very friendly seven. We got back in the car. It was still beautiful outside. Mira handed them to me and began obsessing about whether or not she should take them into the building or down to the Shore with her tomorrow or –
I laughed so hard my eyes ached. All the way back to the library, she tried to figure out how to proceed, back and forth, back and forth. That was so funny, but I almost choked when her last words were, “I was kind of hoping they’re not that good.”
Something Tells Me I’m Into Something
Tonight, we moved the kitten’s litter box from the kitchen to the attic, which we refer to as the cats’ room, but we pretend not to know it’s also the lab where they’re building robots. We wink when the mailman delivers parts. We know exactly where to look for missing screwdrivers and small power tools. Cross your fingers: Topaz will soften and we’ll find kitten-size lab coats in the hamper.
Brown rice paella, which is easier to make than you might imagine, if you imagine it’s not easy. But it is. If you can boil water, you can make paella and should!
The Things You Threw the Phones I Deflected
Black kitten emerging from a dark room. When I imported this image it was so dark I saw no kitten at all.
One of my oldest friends is very ill. I’m restless and having trouble finishing –
Remember Searching For the Perfect
“Taking pictures of the flowers?” asked the neighbors.
“No, the penguins,” Pete and I said in unison.
Your Dreams A Dollar Down
It took two days because we are old and fear dampness, but we cleaned out the corner of the basement in which we store jars, equipment and jarred stuff. This involved a huge amount of dry leaves and mud, which neither of us understands because the basement is indoors. We think. Pete bleached and mopped and we hope the rain outside will stop someday and the floor will dry out.
Proving that I have a life outside of my indoor cats, I have taken this picture of the astroturf welcome mat literally just outside my house.
Ahead of us: clearing out jarred stuff from last year we didn’t finish over the winter. Most of it is fruit. I’m going to eat gallons of fruity yogurt.
Every Little Thing Just Turns Me On
Mistakes are shiny.
County Fair In the Country Sun
Pete looked up and discovered the tiny kitten perched atop the pillar. He panicked. She climbed down and skipped off to climb something else.
Valued Destiny Comes To Nothing
This right here is the stuff:
Nazi-Naming Dad Fights for Right to See His Son
Bring it, New Jersey.
Dressed in a Nazi uniform, Heath Campbell marched into a New Jersey courthouse to petition a family court judge to allow him to see his youngest son.
“I’m going to tell the judge, I love my children. I wanna be a father, let me be it,” Campbell told NBC10 Monday before court proceedings. “Let me prove to the world that I am a good father.”
The closed-door hearing at Hunterdon County Family Court in Flemington, N.J., was being held to determine whether the 40-year-old father of four, who gave his children Nazi-inspired names, could visit with his 2-year-old son Heinrich Hons Campbell.
My sister Daria lives out there. I must know if she’s scanning PTA meetings for men wearing epaulets.
The boy was 16 hours old in November 2011 when he was taken from Heath Campbell and his now estranged wife Deborah Campbell at the Hunterdon Medical Center, according to the father.
Do I feel sorry for the homegrown Nazis? I might, because they are completely deluded and the kids are kind of cute. But named for prominent Nazis.
NJ DYFS officials had already placed Heinrich Hons Campbell’s older siblings – Adolf Hitler Campbell, 7, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, 6, and 5-year-old Honzlynn Jeannie Campbell – in foster care because of the alleged violence in the family’s Holland Township, N.J. home.
The Campbells gained national attention in December 2008 after a Greenwich Township, N.J. ShopRite supermarket refused to write Adolf Hitler Campbell’s name on a cake for his third birthday. The couple complained the refusal constituted discrimination.
A second store eventually honored their request, but the flap led NJ DYFS to start an investigation into the family.
The agency’s investigation prompted a judge to remove the kids from the couple’s care.
Seldom does one see cause and effect in the same story. Unless it’s a story about a guy who names his children for Nazis.
“I’ve never abused my children, I only name my children and I don’t think it’s right anymore,” Heath Campbell said. He said he hasn’t seen any of his children in two years and that the three oldest children have been adopted by another family.
“Basically, what they’re saying is because of my beliefs and I’m a Nazi, that us people don’t have any constitutional rights to fight for our children,” he said.
Asked whether he felt wearing the Nazi uniform, complete with a swastika patch on the arm and leather boots, into court would help or hurt his case, the father said it depended on the judge.
“If they’re good judges and they’re good people, they’ll look within, not what’s on the outside,” he said.
…hilarious because good people are not Nazis. As a rule, Nazis are bad guys – inside and out.
Heath Campbell started wearing the uniform in June 2012 after forming “Hitler’s Order,” a pro-Nazi organization. He was accompanied to the hearing by a member of that organization, Bethanie White.
White also wore Third Reich garb – with swastika patches – to the proceedings.
The father, who has Nazi symbols tattooed on his arm and neck and had Nazi memorabilia in his home, had previously said he was not a fan of Hitler’s atrocities.
Dr. Phil would pitch his clipboard and throw around the word crazy here.
Heath Campbell says he and his wife have separated and that she has given up her rights to the children.
In June 2012, a New Jersey Superior Court denied the couple’s appeal to return the children home.
Despite my icy heart, I have sympathy for crazy people who do not realize they’re crazy. But wait. Back at the beginning, we saw a link to a TV news video. Watch the reporter’s face in this video.
Nothing but extensive therapy will help this guy.
Poor Impulse Control 