Trailer Park Shark vs. Gold Medal Man
Keep your hands and feet inside the confines of your easy chair–Shark Week is circling! It attacks July 23 and lasts an entire week on the Discovery Channel and SYFY.
Before I begin my musings about the annual fest to pay homage to an eating machine, let me set the stage by asking you to imagine a cello. The Jaws theme begins. Come on, you can hear it–it’s two stinkin’ notes. Even I, possessing a cello I can’t play, can manage two notes. So now that you have that playing in your head, let’s continue.
For the past two weeks, I’ve seen advertisements for Shark Week in the form of sharks on a plane, Shark Week T-shirts, Shark After Dark nail polish, and Deep Sea Delight ice cream cupcakes. Then there is shark on a Seal. Unfortunately, the shark wasn’t interested in a Kiss From a Rose, it wanted pop star nosh.
The Discovery Channel lineup for the week of July 23rd – 30th offers scenes of serial killing sharks (because after the first attack they’re apparently serial killers), devil sharks, and a shark safari. There are also alien sharks, which I think could be a possible crossover event with SYFY. The main event for Discovery this year is Commotion in the Ocean–Michael Phelps vs. Great White. No gloves, mouthguards, or jock straps for this one, it’s a race to see who is the fastest swimmer. Should we watch through our fingers like I did when I saw Jaws for the first time? Will Great White decide feed rather than speed is the goal? I guess we’ll see.
Let’s move on to the SYFY B lineup. There are some real winners for Shark Week 2017. 5-Headed Shark Attack (because 5 is way better than 4), Mississippi River Sharks, Toxic Shark, Trailer Park Shark (the things I envision here would take an entire post), Empire of the Sharks, and (drumroll) Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, tagline: “Make America Bait Again”. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Who knew that idea would fly…5 times? I guess Tara Reid and Ian Ziering still need grocery money.
I will have to say, I am disappointed that SYFY hasn’t taken my suggestion for one of their spectacular movie events. I want to see T-rex Hex. An evil warlock places a hex on (name the city) for shutting down his warlock consulting business. He turns the long-armed city council into short-armed dinosaurs and mayhem ensues. (What? It’s at least as good as Sharknado!) Just an FYI for all of you who are fans of 80’s romance covers, Fabio will be playing the part of the Pope in Sharknado 5. I think I’ll insist on Fabio playing the part of the evil warlock in T-rex Hex as well…now that would be worth the price of admission!
Some days are frustrating. We can’t avoid them, but why cry when you can laugh about the stuff that gets under your skin? Here are a few of my unfavorite things:
As I was sweeping up the week’s worth of cat fur from my two feline companions, I started thinking about all of the things I mindlessly throw out. Take the cat fur for instance. Look at how much I have after just one week! In a few months time, I could have enough for a nice sweater. Cat fur is soft, right? Granted the color isn’t pretty, but with Rit red-violet #131 and a few knitting skills, I could have a cozy sweater by Mardi Gras 2013–provided the Mayans were wrong!
I’m not a writer of horror or anything remotely spooky, but I do love a nice cemetery. On my list of the best, most beautiful cities of the dead, Bonaventure, in Savannah, Georgia, is at the top of the list. I find solace wandering among the graves of the dearly departed under the moss-laden oak sentinels. My family thinks my pastime is a bit strange, but is it really? I view it as socializing with the bodily impaired. These people lived, loved, laughed and cried as we all do. Each person had a unique story which is remembered by loved ones and marked with a personalized stone.
As I strolled through the aisles of our new Sam’s Club with my jumbo-sized cart, I made some observations. First and foremost, I wasn’t aware that pig lips were a marketed product for human consumption. It boggled my mind further to know that someone would prefer this as a bulk item. Does pickled anything go bad if you don’t eat it in a timely manner?
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” – Ernest Hemingway
32 years ago today, my husband and I were married. It doesn’t seem that long ago…I remember it well.
My favorite bedtime story, The Happy Lion, written by Louise Fatio and illustrated by her husband, Roger Duvoisin, is about a lion living in a French zoo. For me, The Happy Lion was an introduction to French culture and the moral: the grass is always greener on the other side of the zoo fence. This 1954 children’s book gave birth to seven sequels and was the winner of the first Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, a German literary award. At age five, I didn’t care about the award or the sequels, I only knew that I wanted to hear it night after night before I went to sleep. From The Happy Lion, I gained my love of the written word and I learned to say bonjour and au revoir in a slow, southern drawl.