Moonbeam McQueen

I get obsessed with things. Some fixations come and go, some are here to stay. Here are a few of the latest.

Baby kosher dill pickles: I’ve become addicted to them. Three jars in two weeks. No calories, but I’m retaining water like the Grand Coulee Dam. They also make me have really weird dreams.

Dog the Bounty Hunter: Oh my gosh. I just can’t explain this one. Yes, I can. I love this guy. For Halloween, I desperately want Tom and I to dress up like Dog and Beth. I want gigantic blond hair and size 40EE breasts and long, pink scratch-the-eyes-out-of-bad-guys fingernails. I want to wear black leather hot pants with heels, and a black leather vest. It will look so– wrong. I want Tom to have a mullet and long braids with stuff in them, and sunglasses and tattoos and a wife beater t-shirt with a black leather vest over it. This is my dream. Just for one night.

I became addicted to this show while visiting my mom a few months ago (I don’t watch TV at home, so no cable). I’d stay up late just to watch all the episodes they’d re-run, one after another. I love these folks because they’re so themselves– goodhearted, family-oriented, oddball bounty hunters. Forty-three kids, all little bounty hunters in training.

I was talking to my daughter about personal safety one day. She was working at a little snow cone shack for the summer, and I was worried that someone would cart her off, or knock her over the head for some blue raspberry syrup. “You need to carry bear mace,” I told her.

“Bear mace?”

“Yeah, you know. Like “Dog the Bounty Hunter. I love that guy.”

She became so sad. “Awwwwww…Mom, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I asked.

“Don’t love Dog the Bounty Hunter. Please.”

I told my best friend about my fixation, and she got sort of sad too. “Nooooooooo….”

Tom just shakes his head. I don’t care. I’m a sucker for bighearted do-gooders. Even redneck ones. “In Dog we trust.”

My son: Oh my gosh, I’ve been missing this guy. He’s twenty-one, and is one of the most fascinating people in the world to me. Brilliantly smart, wonderfully talented, socially conscious, and hilariously funny. No one can make me laugh like this fellow.

At one point, when he was about fifteen or so, he developed this habit of saying, “Hey Mom, remember that time when…?” even when the event happened about five minutes earlier.

Example: We once had this old clunker of a Nissan. Everything that could go wrong with this car did, including the ability to completely roll up the windows. Once, I took my son to a doctor’s appointment. I parked the car, and we got out. As we turned to walk away, the glass on the driver’s side window completely shattered. We could hear the tinkly sounds of crumbling glass falling to the ground behind us. I turned to look, then just kept walking. I simply couldn’t handle it at that moment, and I didn’t want to be late for the appointment. Besides, what’s one more single-mom crisis? It put me in a baaaaad mood. My son, however thought the whole thing was hilarious. Every five to ten minutes, he’d say, “Hey, Mom? Mom? Remember that time you shut your car door, and the glass fell out?” Of course I did. It just happened. Soon he had me rolling with laughter. To this day, he has the magical ability to make me laugh on my gloomiest days.

My daughter: What is this bond we have with our daughters? So complex. Mine is lovely, smart, difficult, fun and funny. I love cranking up the radio and singing at the top of my lungs with her. We have shed many tears together, and we’ve laughed until our sides hurt. She’s my angel.

Pandora Radio: This is a great internet site. You type in an artist’s name, and then Pandora analyzes the tones, the beat, and the genre, then it spits out music in the same style. I typed in “Iggy Pop” this morning, and I’ve been listening to great music ever since. If I don’t like a song, I give it the “thumbs down” and it skips it. Typing in “Amy Winehouse” yields some great, mellower results. No classical music yet, though.

Documentaries, word games and libraries: I am a geekette.

PerezHilton.com: I despise this gossip site, and yet I can’t stay away. It’s fascinating to me. Like a bad car wreck. I’m going to start a twelve-step program for my addiction. I’ve already written the steps, the rough draft of which I’ll post after this.

Lip Plumper: One of the saddest things that I’ve read about menopause is that your lips get thinner as you age. So for about five years, I’ve been preparing for this by trying every lip plumper on the planet. I keep hoping that I’ll look like Angelina Jolie, but I think I’m just breaking even. Must….keep….searching….

The Weekly World News: I’m devastated, because this supermarket tabloid has ended publication. I’ve always fantasized about writing for them. What will become of Bat Boy? Who will tell us about babies born with halos, law-abiding citizens being attacked by Sasquatch, and women giving birth to aliens? More importantly, what will I read while waiting in the checkout line?

Sushi: Ideally, I would eat it until they pried the chopsticks from my cold, dead hand. Unfortunately, they haven’t invented hamburger roll yet, so Tom won’t step foot inside a sushi bar.

Pomegranate Mojitos: I’m sort of over this, but it’s been a fun summer treasure hunt, seeking out places that actually make them.

Wikipedia: I love the fact that I can immediate access information on anyone or anything I get suddenly curious about. Even Mojitos. I reference it constantly.

Making lists of obsessions: I’d better stop now.