Hello iPad, my old friend
I’ve come to play with you again
But this network is slowly creeping
Dropped the Wi-Fi while I was Skyping
And the iTunes that were planted in my brain
Still remain
Within the walls of Apple

The internets I walked alone
My iPod and my iPhone
By the halo of an iMac
Ten hours of Photoshop won’t break my back
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of some rare sunlight
(I worked all night)
Just like the staff at Apple

And in the iTunes store I saw
Ten thousand mobile apps or more
People sharing songs on Spotify
Checked in on Foursquare though I don’t know why
People writing blogs that no one ever shares
’cause no one cares
Except the nerds at Apple

Hardware choices start to grow
MacBook Air or MacBook Pro
They say the iPhone 5 is coming soon
When it does I’m pretty sure I’ll swoon
But my hopes, like silent teardrops fell
And echoed
Within the well of Apple

And the people bowed and prayed
To the Apple god they made
And their thumbs all hurt from texting
Too many hashtags and LOL-ing
And their texts said, “The words of the iCloud will be posted on our Facebook walls
And ‘liked’ by all”
And whispered in the halls of Apple

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For the past few weeks my house has been a construction zone. We’re not talking about a “moved furniture to paint the wall” situation, but a full-fledged, air-compressing, belt-sanding jobsite. My brother-in-law, Jay, came down from Waco to help my husband completely gut and remodel the front office. Please do not skim that last line—yes, I said Waco. My husband accuses me of being the most judgmental non-judgmental person he’s ever met, but I’m sorry, if you can’t see the town of Waco as being pertinent to this or any other story, you must be from Longview.

Jay is a nice enough fellow, but let’s just say that not even with bifocals and Lasik surgery will we ever see eye to eye. He’s the NRA, to my NOW; the venison stew to my tofu stir-fry. I think it would be accurate to call him a good ol’ boy.

Is it just me, or does this seem unsafe?

Jay is a hunter. A cross between weapons depot and meat processing plant, his house is more Guns & Ammo than Better Homes & Gardens. When not killing woodland creatures, Jay likes cooking and eating them. Equal parts Betty Crocker and Ted Nugent, Jay seems to be an expert on everything from growing an herb garden to field dressing a buck. Evenings are spent on the couch in a comical remote control battle between Top Shot and Top Chef.

To give you a little perspective, I was raised in a Jewish home with a large extended family on both coasts. My husband’s side of the family is pretty much all Texan (also Catholic and Syrian, but that’s another story). Suffice it to say our backgrounds are not even remotely similar. The only hunting my family does is for the takeout menu in the junk drawer. I’ve never killed my own food—just my parents’ hopes and dreams.

To Jay’s credit, it only took one little chat after I picked up a can of spit from his chewing tobacco for him to learn the first rule of Casa Weenie. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s generally safe for house guests to assume that all bodily fluids should be kept outside the living room.

This is what greeted me the other morning. Disturbing, but now I can slice a tomato paper-thin!

For someone who spends every waking moment either cleaning guns or killing things, Jay sure bonded with our toy poodle, Dexter. This odd couple both charmed and frightened me. More feral cat than lapdog, Dexter is suspicious of everything—particularly strangers—of which Jay was surely one of the strangest. The image of Dexter curled up in a sweet little ball while Jay sharpened knives beside him seemed like excellent fodder for a quirky sitcom. Or perhaps a slasher film.

So for a week and a half, I was more or less banished to the back of the house with the din of demolition ringing in my ears. I broke out in a cold sweat when Jay returned home to Waco last week. There is still a shop vac in the living room and a filing cabinet by the kitchen table. I keep expecting Fred Sanford to walk through the door at any moment.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the good news is that Jay is returning to Austin soon to pick up where he and Mr. Weenie left off. Meanwhile, I’m washing the sheets for the couch, clearing off the knife sharpening table and investing in a brand new tin of Skoal.

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Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like you’d be better off going back to bed? You know—the one where you’re buried in paperwork, the sink is clogged and your spouse just used your $40 tweezers to pull a staple out of the wall? Of course you have.

Perhaps you’ve found a way to take the edge off—maybe a glass of wine or a moist snack cake. Personally, I prefer to unwind after a harrowing day by flipping through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. More commonly known as the DSM (not to be confused with the DMV, which has its own unique collection of mental cases), this tantalizing tome produced by the American Psychiatric Association is the how-to manual of hypochondriacs and former beauty pageant contestants everywhere.

Here are a few examples that illustrate why just a couple minutes of reading can change one’s entire outlook on life. I hope you’ll find it useful.

1) Intermittent Explosive Disorder: Symptoms include frequent and often unpredictable episodes of extreme anger or physical outbursts. While I typically shy away from confrontation, even this mild-mannered gal has her limits. Consider the great laundromat episode of 1996, during which I nearly got myself into a hair-puller with a greedy and impatient dryer nazi. On the upside, that particular event resulted in Mr. Weenie’s brisk installation of a washer/dryer in our house before the next load of laundry built up in the basket. Win-win.

2) Shared Psychotic Disorder: Generally thought to affect only Scientologists and the Bush administration, this insidious disease has grown in recent years to include iPhone users, home schoolers and the cast of Jersey Shore.

3) Dissociative Fugue: The primary feature of this disorder is abrupt travel away from home, an inability to remember important aspects of one’s life, and the partial or complete adoption of a new identity. In addition to the melodic reference, I like this one because it brings to the forefront my decision to adopt a new identity as that of a hotdog.

The following are less-common disorders, but I swear I’m not making them up:

4) Capgras Delusion: The Stepford Wife of mental disease, this doozy involves believing that someone has been replaced by a monster who looks exactly like that person. Usually occurring in someone who already suffers from another psychological disorder (duh), they might even think a loved one or friend has been replaced by an identical impostor robot. Though he blames me for it, my husband suffers from this disorder on a fairly regular basis. Monthly, even.

5) Alien Hand Syndrome: Also known as Dr. Strangelove Syndrome, this neurological disorder is characterized by a person’s hand seeming to take on a life of its own. In my case, the condition presents itself as an inability to resist stealing fries off of someone else’s plate.

6) Exploding Head Syndrome: The presumably unpleasant experience of hearing a deafening, explosive noise within one’s own head; often brought on by envisioning Sarah Palin in charge of national security or a fourth grade geography class.

Now, after reading the descriptions above, how many of you would redefine your “bad day” as simply below average? Call me crude and unfeeling, but nothing says “it could be worse” quite like reading about a good case of Urophagia. Sure I lost my job today and my husband ran off with a carnie, but at least I didn’t drink my own pee, for God’s sake.

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* This post was not meant to insult those who suffer from severe mental illness. While I fall somewhere along the lower end of the spectrum for various disorders, I understand that certain people have much more serious challenges. It was in the spirit of fun and self-awareness that I wrote this post. Therefore, any malicious comments will be either edited or deleted. So there.

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A few things you may not know about IleenieWeenie…

1. I suffer from emetaphobia (irrational fear of vomit). More than once I’ve spent the night in my car in the driveway when my husband’s had a stomach bug.
2. One summer I took graphic design courses in Switzerland with the guy who designed the IBM logo.
3. I was a ski bum in Vail, Colorado for three years.
4. I won 1st place in the 6th grade science fair with an experiment involving human teeth.
5. My parents almost named me Samantha, but my mom was worried that if I had a lisp I’d be Thamantha Markowithz.
6. I was Junior class president of my high school.
7. I once tread water for seven hours straight for a contest at summer camp. (I won)
8. I don’t eat meat that walks on land, and I don’t like vegetables.
9. I kept a pair of rhinestone dance shoes in the trunk of my car for nearly 10 years. (because you just never know)
10. One of the best meals of my life was Long John Silver’s takeout, and I wasn’t even stoned.

** Mr. Weenie thinks I should add that I’ve never seen “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”

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With a tattered map in the back seat and muddy footprints along the floorboards of our rental car, the Weenie family said farewell to the majestic Rocky Mountains and headed back home. Curiously, we left Austin with three bags and returned with four. It’s as if our luggage went on the same high-carb diet we did while on vacation

We arrived home to discover that Casa Weenie was busy while we were away:

1. The garden and all indoor plants committed suicide.
2. Our house almost caught on fire.
3. Something died in the refrigerator.
4. Gary the Home Gnome forgot to do the dishes and make the bed while we were out.

As I sprawl out on the kitchen floor, waiting for the house to cool down, it occurs to me that other than my husband and a 12-year-old boy panning for gold, I haven’t spoken to another human being in over two weeks. I’m a little nervous about going back to reality and the necessity for human contact—and a bit worried that everyone I know has forgotten who I am. As far as Twitter and Facebook are concerned, I no longer exist. Will I remember how to brush my teeth and bathe regularly? Will I recall how to turn on my computer or drive a car?

These are the questions running through my head as I notice a strange, rectangular object on the coffee table. When I pick it up and push the green button, a large box by the window comes to life with pictures and sound. Transfixed, I sit back and am immediately transported to another time and place—one in which a man wearing a tie tells me all the bad things that happened in the world while I was away. I push the red button and the box turns to black again. Then I lie back down on the floor, close my eyes and dream of mountains.

Check out the entire Travelin’ Weenie series:

Part 1: Travelin’ Weenies – The Colorado Experiment
Part 2: The Comfort of Crap
Part 3: Weenie in Her Full, Upright and Locked Position
Part 4: And they’re off…
Part 5: Down in the Valley
Part 6: Lost in Condo City
Part 7: Man Does Not Live by Cookies Alone
Part 8: Mountain Mama
Part 9: Why Poodles and Spas Don’t Mix
Part 10: On the Road Again
Part 11: Vail
Part 12: Rocky Mountain Hell

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While planning their Colorado adventure, the Weenies made sure to leave a good amount of time for pure relaxation. We decided to spend the last five days of our vacation in a fairly remote area where we could unplug, rest and clear our minds before heading back to the real world of computers, deadlines and 100º+ temperatures.

After much research, we chose the tiny town of Alma, just south of Breckenridge, to host our retreat. More than a week of driving, hiking and sightseeing had us ready to unwind in a delightful mountain home. I should have known something was amiss when we realized that Alma didn’t make it into any of the guidebooks at the bookstore.

Everything started out alright; the landscape was breathtaking—the air cool and crisp. Snowcapped mountains exploded from the valley floor just steps from our living room windows. At night we could see every star in the galaxy. It was literally a mountain paradise. But as we all know from the movies, the more stunning a setting, the more likely it is that some sort of malevolent force is lying in wait… and that force probably doesn’t have internet service.

**********

Below is a partial transcript of the events that took place during the final days of the Weenies’ Colorado experiment.

Alma, Day One: We arrive at our secluded mountain home in the early evening. The altitude has gotten to us, making even a trip upstairs exhausting. For medicinal purposes we eat some chocolate, pop a couple of Advil and go to bed.

Alma, Day Two: It’s the Weenies’ anniversary! We sleep, read, eat and generally enjoy each other’s company. Bill gets Ilene a nice gift. Ilene thinks trip to Colorado was supposed to be nice gift. Ilene feels like an ass for not getting Bill anything.

Alma, Day Three: Feeling sense of inferiority that while Bill is navigating his way through Walden Pond, I’m reading futuristic soft porn on my Kindle. He accuses me of secretly texting. Has he discovered that I’ve been sneaking out during his naps to stand in a field with my iPhone held high in the air, hoping for connectivity? There is a TV here, but we are determined not to turn it on. We’ve given thought to climbing onto the roof to try and get service, but who would take care of Dexter if we died in a tragic internet accident?

Alma, Day Four: Things are getting desperate. Trapped in our magnificent prison, Bill has started reading old junk email and looking through photos of our dead dog, Wally. Yesterday he sat at the window with binoculars, reporting on a team of climbers he saw atop the mountain ridge. I’m pretty sure he was hallucinating. Without considering the gaseous ramifications of feeding Dexter eggs, Bill dooms us to an afternoon of stink bombs wafting out from beneath the quilt we’re all sharing. Now it’s snowing sideways, so Bill takes inventory of our food supplies—he’s worried about scurvy. We’ve taken to wearing unibomber hoodies to bed.

Alma, Day Five: We’ve eaten four pounds of chocolate, three pizzas, a bag of cookies and some grapes. Yesterday’s highlight was brushing our teeth. Dexter keeps trying to get us to go for walks, but it’s as if we’ve lost the ability to move our bodies. He barfed last night in an attempt to give us a project to work on together. We’ve gone through almost all Trivial Pursuit questions from the 1985 edition and have considered breaking out an old jigsaw puzzle gathering dust under the coffee table. Bill obsessively plays solitaire, while I forage for carbs. We haven’t bathed in two days…

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In the end, Alma was the perfect experiment for the Weenie family. Sitting in quiet contemplation was not an activity they were familiar with before. Now they can check that off their list and go back to watching Law & Order reruns and working until midnight.

Tune in next time for the final chapter in the Travelin’ Weenie series.

Part 1: Travelin’ Weenies – The Colorado Experiment
Part 2: The Comfort of Crap
Part 3: Weenie in Her Full, Upright and Locked Position
Part 4: And they’re off…
Part 5: Down in the Valley
Part 6: Lost in Condo City
Part 7: Man Does Not Live by Cookies Alone
Part 8: Mountain Mama
Part 9: Why Poodles and Spas Don’t Mix
Part 10: On the Road Again
Part 11: Vail

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Weenie in Vail

Exactly 20 years ago I graduated from The University of Texas, sold my car and bought a one-way ticket to Vail, Colorado. Burned out after college, the last thing I wanted to be was a practicing graphic designer, so I packed up a few things and headed off for life as a ski bum. “Weenie’s Vail Years” is a saga in and of itself, and maybe I’ll tell it someday. For now though, it’s just a bit of back story.

Let me start by saying, I love this town. Vail took me in during a difficult time in my life, and while there were some rough patches along the way, the fact that I could wake up to such beauty each day and ski to work made everything seem alright. Also, I was in my 20s and there were lots of boys there. But I digress.

Dexter hits the motherload

Coming back to Vail after so long was like going to someone else’s high school reunion; I didn’t know anyone and spent a lot of time trying to find a restroom. As we first drove into town, I had Mr. Weenie take me by the condo where I used to live. Hardly anything had changed. The place hadn’t been painted in some time, and the same old ski racks hung on the front porch.

Next we headed toward Vail Village, but I didn’t recognize anything. How can anyone get lost in a town the size of a large cruise ship? We drove in circles as I tried to locate some sort of landmark to anchor my memory, but all I saw were great swaths of condominiums and construction crews.

The month of May is the off-season in most western ski resorts, so the place was like a ghost town. Locals refer to it as “mud season” since all the snow has begun melting but the grass hasn’t grown back yet. That’s when all construction is done for pretty much the entire year, and anyone not in the construction business either goes home for a visit or heads down to New Zealand for six more months of skiing. The emptiness of the streets made it even more obvious that my beloved little mountain town had turned into a behemoth stranger.

Vail has always been high-end—even a little snooty—but the locals were well known for keeping it real. We did so by doing foolish things on skis or in bars (often both at the same time) and by scaring the tourists. But now here I was—a tourist in my own neighborhood. While I recognized certain shops and restaurants here and there, and the famous Covered Bridge was thankfully still intact, most of my time that day was spent pointing out what wasn’t there 20 years ago.

Covered Bridge over Weenie

In the end I was glad to revisit my past. Enough of the old Vail was still left to remind me of a free-spirited Weenie who took advantage of that window between adolescence and real life to play in the snow for a few fun years. Most importantly, the chocolate shop by the main lift was still around, so I dropped fifty bucks there for a big sack of tasty memories.

Later on, when Mr. Weenie reminded me that you can’t go home again, I had to disagree. Indeed, you can go home again—just be prepared for some rich asshole to have redecorated while you were out.

Tune in next time for Part 12 in the Travelin’ Weenie series.

Part 1: Travelin’ Weenies – The Colorado Experiment
Part 2: The Comfort of Crap
Part 3: Weenie in Her Full, Upright and Locked Position
Part 4: And they’re off…
Part 5: Down in the Valley
Part 6: Lost in Condo City
Part 7: Man Does Not Live by Cookies Alone
Part 8: Mountain Mama
Part 9: Why Poodles and Spas Don’t Mix
Part 10: On the Road Again

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