Hummingbird Holidays

At Thanksgiving while home from college, I asked my mom what she wanted for Christmas.  She quickly replied, "a hummingbird feeder".  I was so pleased with that idea.  Who doesn't love looking at those cute tiny birds rapidly fluttering while partaking of the red nectar of the feeder?  Maybe blind folks or sociopaths.

Soon thereafter I found an appropriate feeder at some nature store in some large mall and enthusiastically gave it to my mom on Christmas.  She loved it! I had visions of my mother enjoying the feeder in her later years and felt such great joy and warm fuzzy feelings.

I returned to my hometown in March for spring break to see my mom and friends.  Mom had set up the hummingbird feeder just outside and near the top of the sliding glass door where we were sitting and chatting. A hummingbird flew to the feeder and was suckling from the tip of the glass tube within moments of my arrival. As I continued talking to my mom, I became aware that the hummingbird was bumping into the glass every few seconds.  That was strange. Finally, I brought this to my mom's attention, "What's up with that hummingbird bumping into the glass?  I've never seen that before."
 
My mother answered with that little Irish twinkle in her eye, "Honey, don't tell anybody, but I put a little Rose in the feeder."
 
My mom was getting the hummingbirds drunk on wine. 

And you wonder why I'm so weird?

King of Space #17

I was on my way home alone after a nice late-night dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my good friend. I was happily full from Chicken Marsela, garlic mashed potatoes and this great hot french bread and sweet wheat bread smeared with real butter that melted into each crumb. I had two glasses of St. Michele house Chardonnay, which massaged my stressful day away. I drank freshly-brewed iced tea and enjoyed a couple refills. Lastly, I ended with this rich, hot coffee swirled with a touch of cream and a slice of pumpkin pecan cheesecake topped with freshly whipped cream. Ahhh....I was sated, satisfied and saturated, ready to jump into bed for a long, restful night of slumber and dreams of hog heaven.



Then I get home and, once again, some FUCKER has parked in my second parking space. I wasn't using the space. But it's MY space. Not theirs. Not to borrow. Not to steal. What if friends showed up unexpectedly from Paris and needed MY space? I own the fucking space. I was trailer boy who lived his adolescence in a mobile home (that means trailer). I am not trailer boy anymore, and this condo-owning mother fucker does not cotton to strange ass bites taking my hard-earned extra space!

I always have to write some threatening, petty note and put it on the anonymous and ill-parked car's front window just under the windshield wiper. "Don't park here ever again. This is not your space. Expect to be towed if I see you here again."
I was tired. I was full. I was pissed that I was again put in the position that I had to write some sniveling note.

Suddenly, it came to me. I didn't have to write any note. The space is mine to do with as I will.

I focused on the trespassing overgrown SUV's front left tire. I saluted, readied myself and assumed the position. A river of ice water with lemon, St. Michele house Chardonnay, freshly-brewed iced tea and rich java with cream gushed from my loins like the broken dam of my pent up anger unfurled all over the skid-proof tread of that offending tire.

I pissed on that tire. I marked my territory. I claimed my space. I wrote no notes. I am the King of Space #17!

I adjusted my equipment and zipped up my fly as the flood receded on the cement parking garage floor. I turned and walked up to my lair. I had thought I was thoroughly satisfied from that sumptuous meal, but pissing on your problems and claiming your space is the ultimate satisfaction. I stripped down to my naked manly glory and commanded my bed as the lion does the jungle. I slept like the King of the Beasts after a hard day's slaughter. I slept like the King of Space #17 and dreamt of captaining the rivers of the world and conquering my piece of the universe.

23 Things I Hate About Facebook

1. People who write cryptic shit that begs for follow up questions. It seems manipulative or pathetic. For example, "I'm in the ER!" or "Life seems crappy." Yes, and why the fuck didn't you mention any details? Why is that Debbie Downer? Now I feel like I should fish the answers out of you and feel a bit manipulated.

2. Or someone writes some pop reference or esoteric shit that either I don't understand or I do. Either way I'm sucked in. I have to research the reference or follow the posts for clues or deign to ask what the fuck it means. Or, if I do know what it means, I have to chime in 'cause i don't want to let the cool kids think I don't know their shit.

3. I'm not interested in what you are eating and cooking at each meal. If you have some really great meal, yes, I'd love some details, but every fuckin' meal is not that glamorous. I'm a foodie, but then we all eat and poo.

4. Finding out that your friends had fun with other of your friends but didn't invite you. This then begets a litany of my cryptic posts about all the fabulous times I've had with their other friends (that weren't invited either) at a frenzy of glamorous activities.

5. Being friended by high school classmates who weren't really your friends in high school, and you haven't had any contact with in years or decades; only to discover that, in their endless vacuous posts, they refreshed your memory as to why you haven't spoken to them in decades.

6. People who have an opinions about most everything, feel compelled to post them and, more often then not, it's in direct opposition to my opinion. I have been pissed at nits who think gay marriage is a sin or challenge my President, Barack Obama, or think that leashes for children are a good thing (NOT).

7. Friend collectors...Oh, really? You have over 1000 friends? Then you are either really shallow or are trying to pretend you are popular. Real celebrities get a pass on this one.

8. People that send you weird shits like Hugs and Farm Animals. I like FB egg, plant and fish games, but I don't send them to you, do I? NO!

9. The constant reporters...You really think I'm interested in how you feel once or twice an hour? Not really, bud. Oh, you are going to bed? Oh, you are eating? Oh, you are at the store? Well, I'm taking a shit. How about that?!

10. Don't you send me one of those emails that says I'll die if I don't forward it on to people and will gain increasing monetary rewards if I forward it to 5, 10, 25 or more unsuspecting friends. I'll voodoo curse your ass, bitch.

11. The low self-esteemers who are regularly reporting on their cool activities that really aren't that cool. Their constant reports seem sad and pathetic.

12. The "you-broke-up-with-me" posts...now I'm going to tell you how much fun I'm having or how sad I am or how much sex I'm getting just to spite your break-up-with-me-you-fucker ass.

13. Those fuckers of whom I'm jealous. They seem genuinely happy and productive and nice and cool. They have knock-out spouses or partners or lovers. Or they have cute kids. Or a fabulous career that they periodically post about. They post pictures of their perfect lives and friends and activities. They are never too much, but just enough to make me genuinely feel like crap.

14. Your friend's friend who you don't know and misinterprets your post to your mutual friend then defends the friend or tells you off or screws up your meaning in their reply. Mind your own damn business you fuckin' friend of a friend who I don't know and doesn't know me and doesn't know my relationship with our friend. Oh yeah, and you suck, Sparky!

15. No, that really isn't a cute thing you kids just did. You maybe should smack Johnny's ass for that or send him for a time out instead of encouraging that bratty behavior.

16. I don't give a shit if FB determined your favorite color is red. Mine is blue. I didn't need FB to tell me or YOU.

17. You really think I want to know what sexual position FB tells you your type is? NOT, and I can't believe you would post that shit for everyone to read. Have some decorum and discretion. Oh, I'm sorry...how could you even think straight in that whack position?

18. If you are on FB making dozens of posts throughout the day, that's sad. Rather than being engaging, I feel bad for you that you have no life, and I am somehow associated with you.

19. Chatters! I hate when I'm reading my FB posts while watching TV and in the zone, then I get some damn chat box erupting on my computer screen from someone I don't want to chat with much or at all. If we haven't spoken on the phone in over a year or maybe a decade, I'm fairly certain that I don't want to "chat" with you now. Send an email so I can write a one-sentence reply to your shit (BTW, I figured out how to have only people I really want to chat with see me).

20. Or those surveys people send to share factoids about themselves and then want you to share back. I really have learned many things I didn't need or want to know about you. Mostly I learned that you think your life's details are really interesting. I'm not going to respond back to you and 20 other friends because I don't think my life is that interesting. Take a clue...yours isn't either.

21. Stop poking me. Do you need my attention that badly or are you really just pissed at me? Wait, now that I think of it, you really must want to me to fuck you, don't you? Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like me?

22. I don't want to see several hundred pictures of you, your dog, your house, your car, your vacations, etc. A few pictures are fun. Several hundred is narcissistic. (Okay, I have several dozen of myself. No one is perfect.)

23. And finally, the thing I hate about FB the most...people who can't take a fuckin' joke. That's not you, right? Good!