The Coronation of The Sun King

File this under "Times when I wish I had a camera phone."

Yesterday, as I waited in the lobby of Cancerville Clinic for my dad to pick me up, I spotted a guy wandering about in a black parka-like jacket. Pretty normal looking from the front, but when he walked past me, I got an eye full. Across the back of the jacket was emblazoned this mosaic of images: Obama's profile, the White House, "44th President", and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't quite make out. All in little red, white, and blue rhinestone. Rhinestones. As in BEDAZZLER.

For real.

Rhinestones.

Seriously.

The President. The RHINESTONE President.

It really was a bit too much.

And that's all I have about that.

Space Invaders

Taking a look out of the window, it looks like any other grey, rainy November morning. I don't spot either of the following 1.)Fire reigning down and the four horseman of the apocalypse descending to Earth to signal the end of times 2.) Rainbows, unicorns, gold doubloons, and hark the herald angels sing.

So the beat goes on.

And I still have leukemia. The only "change" I am really concerned about right at this particular moment is if the president-elect can come down here and lay hands on me and heal my cancery ass. Call me selfish, but right now I've got bigger fish to fry.

One thing I did read this morning that troubled me is the talk that the embargoes may now be lifted from Cuba with the new administration. Okay,first how about Cuba clean up their human rights(especially in regards to gays), reinstate religious freedom, freedom of the press, end censorship of books and the jailing of librarians, and start letting their people leave legally if they want to instead of forcing them to paddle the sea in homemade boats. Hey, how's that for a thought? You want some embargoes lifted? Work for them.

Last week, we had an invasion of sorts in the Amos household. I meant to write about at the time, but I think I was pretty well traumatized by the whole thing. On and off since we moved into this house (and actually we had the same trouble in our rental house from back in the day), we've had issues with camel crickets. For those of you unfamiliar with what a camel cricket is (also known in some circles as spider crickets), feast your eyes:

Yum, I know. These little boogers are even more revolting up close and personal, and they can jump like nobody's business. It may not look like it, but camel crickets can actually get pretty big, with legs and all enough to cover most of the palm of my hand. For some reason, they have always reminded me of the face suckers from the Alien movies. You know, these guys:
The sight of one of these things in the house is enough to paralyze both The Mister and me. Alastair just points at them and says, "Big bug, mommy." Of course there was that time about nine months ago when he walked into the kitchen carrying the carcass of a camel cricket, "Mommy, what's this, mommy?" I nearly peed myself and vomited and passed out all at the same time. But instead I managed to swoop down and snatch it away from him, exclaiming "Dead bug! Gross!" Oh how I hope one never jumps on him; he'll be traumatized. Then should that happen, I foresee hysterical panic all around at the mere mention of a camel cricket.

Occasionally, our cats will come through in their roles as latent hunters and catch a couple. Rarely though do they kill them, but choose instead to rip off their jumping legs, making them more interesting playthings. Once bored with the camel cricket, they generally leave its not-dead-yet body in the middle of the floor or their food bowl. Our favorite choice of dispatching these little buggers is the vacuum cleaner; sucks 'em right up with minimal contact on our part.

A year or two ago, my dad came and poked around under our house, sealing off potential entry points for the accursed creatures, and it seemed to work. We had minimal intrusions. Apparently, they've found a way back into the house because with the temperature drop last week, these hopping scourge of the earth were back with a vengeance. One night in particular, we dispatched somewhere between ten and twelve camel crickets in matter of a few hours. It felt like every time we came down stairs there were two or three more in the kitchen or dining room or careening around the den or the laundry room. I had these nightmare visions of the floor covered in these jumping minions of Satan. I felt like Ripley, fighting off the never-ending swarm of acid-spitting predators.

Since then, their presence has declined with the odd bugger popping up here and there, as if the word got out about the Purple Weapon of Mass Destruction (aka the Dyson vacuum) welded by the humans. The camel crickets are more weary of mounting another large invasion any time soon. But we are vigilant.

Here's to one good thing about The Big House: no stinking camel crickets.

Oh and one more thing. I'm losing what little hair I have left. AGAIN. And this time it's a mangy look I'm sporting. There's a nice clean bald spot on the top of my head. Hotness. Chemotastic hotness.

Wake me when it's over

I plan to spend most of today sleeping, since I maybe got three hours last night owing to a late night blood infusions and the less than relaxing accommodations, and reading. If I deign to turn on the telly, it will be to hover around the neutral cable channels so as to avoid all the squawking from the networks.

My mom's friend Sarah said her nightmare would be a repeat of the 2000 elections where it becomes too close to call, everyone goes ape shit, and the election results get smacked around the court systems for a couple of weeks while the rest of America rends their garments and gives up.

I am so weary of ads and junk mail and phone calls. Especially the phone calls. I don't know which were worse, the automated calls or the cold calls, one of which went down like this:

(I'm in the kitchen last week cooking dinner. The phone rings.)

ME: Hello

CALLER: Terry? TERRY? (I'm not exaggerating. The woman was hollering.)

ME: Excuse me?

CALLER: Is this TERRY?

ME: No, I think you have the wrong number.

CALLER: I have THE WRONG NUMBER?

ME: Yes.

CALLER: Terry...Terry...AMOS?

ME: Um,this is the Amos household.

CALLER: Well I'm calling on behalf of Barak Oba...

ME: *click* Guh.

Some people sould not be let near a phone.

I'm just not one to get all swooped up in a Presidential election. Maybe if we were a dictatorship and the person running the ship called all the shots, I'd be more passionate, but really if we were a dictatorship I think there'd probably be only one name on the ballot. And probably if you didn't vote for that name, you might disappear for a little while to be "re-educated". I'm more interested in local and state politics because decisions made at that level tend to have a more immediate and direct impact on my day-to-day living.

Cynicism is the word that best describes my attitude towards national politics. It's mostly business as usual up on Capitol Hill, no matter who's behind that big desk. Because once all the dust has cleared from the election and the fancy speeches and gilded promises faded, it's back to crabby, partisan squabbling and power plays and the well venerated game of finger pointing.

So as I've said after nearly every election, "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss."

Totally unrelated note, is the new Vanity Fair out on magazine stands yet? The celebrity websites have been covering it, and Kate Winslet, my girlfriend, is on the cover looking smoking hot and not unlike a certain iconic French actress whom I also admire. I think I might support Vanity Fair in their choice of cover subject and pick up a copy