Welcome To The Show! I Hope You Brought Your Melted Butter, Or, Come To Think Of It, A Mallet Might Be Kinder.

Welcome to Getting Real With Nance. Today's show will feature Nance Getting Real on a variety of topics, mainly because she's Crabby, Over It, and generally Irked. Let's jump right in and join her Already In Progress, while vacuuming.

Nance: I mean, it just does not matter! I brush them every single damn day, yet all they have to do is WALK INTO A ROOM, and it is covered in their hair. No. Lie. The carpet is covered. The tables are covered. *I* am covered. It is a Losing Battle, this war between me and cat hair. But I refuse to surrender. I will never stop wearing black, either. Never. Never!

Voiceover Announcer: Nance walks into the bathroom to put away towels, setting off a new, but related, monologue.

Nance: Holy crap! Look at the hair in here! It's my hair, it's Rick's hair, it's everywhere. I simply cannot escape the hair around here. If it's not cat hair, it's our hair. How do we even have any left on our heads?! I CANNOT TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Voiceover Announcer: Later, after a frantic and manic bathroom cleaning session left her exhausted, Nance rests in her chair. Unwisely, she browses the Interwebs.

Nance: How hard is it? How hard, everyone? The word is YEAH. The correct spelling is Y-E-A-H. Not Y-A, like you're speaking a foreign language and pronouncing it YAW. Not Y-A-H, like...holy hell, I don't even know why you would spell it like that, ever. And while I'm at it, the word is VOILA. It's French. It means "there you are" or "there it is." It is pronounced VWAH-LAH. It is not some bastardized funsy American word spelled WALA, WALLA, WALLAH, WAH LAH, or WA-LA. Every time I hear or see someone use it incorrectly I wish I could haul the offender up and smack her. Or him. And do NOT get me started on "low and behold" for "lo and behold." So, so painful.  And so symptomatic of What Is Wrong With America on so many levels.

Voiceover Announcer: Unable to rest, Nance is up again and shifting laundry in the basement.

Nance: I deserve nice clean sheets to sleep on. So what. I hate doing sheets. Hate it. It's exhausting. And the load goes off-balance in the washer. And I have to stay down here to make sure it finishes the cycle. And then I get to look at other stuff that needs to be done. Which reminds me, I need to clean litterboxes. And that means sweeping the floor because Marlowe is an aggressive litter scratcher. Because of course she is.

Voiceover Announcer: Back from shuffling laundry and taking the used litter outside to the trash, Nance makes a quick snack of yogurt and fruit so that she can take her bigass vitamins.

Nance: Oh, hell. I forgot that we ran the dishwasher last night. How sad is it that I'm ready to complain about unloading dishes that I didn't even have to stand at the sink and wash? Someone should smack me. But if that someone could sweep my kitchen floor first, that would be great. Or scrub out the tub--even better. Anything, really. Then smack me. Smack away.

Voiceover Announcer: Jared arrives. He needs to use Nance's iPad in order to participate in a West Coast podcast. It is 12:30; the podcast starts at 1:00. He has to search for and download software. He also announces that he will be taking a shower since he came straight from the gym. Lunch may also happen.

Nance: Jared...how...? And I'm warning you now--I'm really, really crabby. Almost violently so.

Jared: Mom. It's okay. And have you tried dancing? Here, watch this.

Voiceover Announcer: Jared dances. Nance is motionless and helpless. Jared spends twenty minutes trying to contact his people on the West Coast to figure out the software download; finally he is successful. He tells them he will jump in at 1:15, takes a shower, and mixes up a "blue drink" which he may or may not have drunk in the shower.

Jared: Mom, I'm surprised you don't have the air on. It's supposed to be hot today.

Nance: I think it's comfortable. I'm sick of air conditioning. If you get too warm in the office during your podcast, turn on the ceiling fan.

Voiceover Announcer: Nance goes down to do the final laundry shift. On her way she belches loudly and uncomfortably.

Nance: Ugh. These damned vitamins. Can't I just get some sort of timed-release implant or something, like that birth control thingy? Or a patch, like they do for people who want to quit smoking? Wow. Did I really just say that? I am so, so crabby. It would not surprise me one bit if I looked down and my hands literally became big, red, pinchy claws.

***

Voiceover Announcer:  This has been Getting Real With Nance.  Nance urges you to Get Real in Comments. You know what she always says: Wallow A Little, Bitch A Lot. Or maybe it's Bitch A Little, Wallow A Lot; she can't ever remember. Either way, let loose your Real and feel no shame.



(original crab photo via Synapse Science Magazine)

Would An RV By Any Other Name...?

Oh, Dearest Readers, I Am Back. Back from gorgeous and wineful Niagara-on-the-Lake, and back from the Grey Sad Doldrums of Vitamin D Deficiency. I feel so much more Myself; there is so much more Nance-ness bubbling inside me. The Blah in my bones is almost gone and my energy is returning. My ankle sprain didn't slow me down much at all, and Life Is Feeling More Like Living.

I'm so very grateful.

But enough about all of That. I want--almost Need--to talk about something else right now. And that something is RVs. Campers. Trailers. Recreational Vehicles. Because let me tell you--while we were driving from Ohio to Ontario, Canada, and back again, they seemed to be everywhere.

Now, I'm not a camping kind of person. Or even glamping (i.e., glamour camping--a term coined out of necessity because so many RVs and campers are so deluxe now).  I can't stand to think of dragging such a bigass vehicle all over the country, looking for campgrounds with hookups and then worrying about who I pull up next to and all of that. The cost of gasoline alone would send me into a panic. That, however, is me. Judging by the volume of campers Rick and I saw on the road, glamping is Hot Right Now. And a Big Deal.

I'm sure lots of people (who are Not Me) love the idea. It sounds very adventurous and pioneering. And, in a way, exciting and liberating. You can grab some basics, throw them in the car/motorhome, and start driving and explore the country. Or whatever.

What does NOT sound very wonderful are the names of some of these vehicles. I started noticing the names on the sides and back ends of campers and RVs and, let me tell you, whoever is naming these things should be out of a job.

The first one to puzzle me was Avenger. For a little old plain white trailer. It looked like the one my grandparents, Ethel and Joe, used to haul behind their Chrysler to Florida every winter. In what way is a trailer an "avenger"? What is it avenging? When I think of an avenger, I think of something dark and quick, something slightly sinister and sharp. For those of you who are more into comic books or films, you're probably thinking of The Avengers. Trust me, in no way did that little metal sugar cube look anything like any one of these:

http://img09.deviantart.net

Then we passed a Cyclone. This might be the worst name ever for a trailer. I think we all know of the unfortunate association between tornadoes and trailer/mobile home parks. Is this really the sort of image one wants to conjure up to boost camper sales? What are the other campers in this line--Toto, Dorothy, Tin Man, Kansas, and the deluxe model, Oz?

Other RV names were just clunky and ugly, like the one called Work and Play Ultra. Do that many people really buy an RV for work (or want to), let alone ultra work? This thing was as big as Rhode Island, so I'm sure just parking it was ultra work. Another one was called Dutch Star. I'm struggling to think what the Dutch have to do with RVs, driving, or stars. I know the Flying Dutchman was the legendary ghost ship that was doomed to never make port, but even that makes more sense for an RV name than Dutch Star, which, by the way, had absolutely no stars in its paint job, nor anything Dutch.

I started wondering why the RV and camper names were so goshdarned terrible. Was it because all the good names were taken by cars, like Roadster, Scout, Traveler, Pathfinder, Voyager, and the like? Why can't they start using literary names that are in the public domain then, like Ivanhoe, Lancelot, Caesar, Othello, or Beowulf? Even some animal names would be better, or some astronomy terms, or natural entities: Timberwolf, Solstice, Tumbleweed. I mean, come on. I would rather they gave these vehicles actual name names, even, like Stephen, Mirabel, Chris, Jose, Vilnius, Gretchen, or Anne. 

Even bottles of Coke have better names.

image via pinterest via google

Tell me you wouldn't rather have a little camper named Wolfgang than Work And Play Ultra. Or Cyclone.  I know, right?

Think up some good camper/RV names and put them in Comments. And tell me how you feel about camping.


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