A Home At The End Of The World With No Ants

I already tried this once today, but the power went out at the office and I am now forced to start over from scratch... I am apologizing in advance for my wandering dribble... I have many thoughts running through my mind today, so I will just share them as I fumble across them...

First off, today I finished one of the best books I have read in quite awhile. It is called "A Home At The End Of The World" by Michael Cunningham. For some reason it echoed through me. My past, my present, my decisions, my flaws. My yearning for love, to be loved, to have a lover. It was a really great book that I picked up on a whim and couldn't have expected to devour like I did. Aren't those the best books to stumble upon?

Since the movie is in limited release in NY and LA, I drug Ben and Adam to it. I didn't cry like I did this morning as I finished the book in bed, but I am happy to say that Colin Farrell did a superb job in a very chewy character. It was also fun to see Wendy Crewson grace the screen with her magic. I still recommend the book before the movie...

The ant saga has taken a turn. I had an anonymous person post on here yesterday! I was beginning to wonder if anyone was reading, but I have made no nevermind and have continued to post away without regard. My poster sent me to the RAID site where I was schooled in the various ants and different treatments to remove them. When I got in last night, I was armed finally with proper Ant disposal. I had bought spray, traps and an electric sonar repeller. I placed traps on the new masses that were coming out of my kitchen sink and bath tub (oh yes, I had a double attack last night!), dropping them on the crowds like the house landing on the Wicked Witch of the East. It took such will power to just let them roam as I went to bed, but the box promised that they would take the bait back to the nest and they would be killed at the source.

Sure enough, tonight, there were only a small smattering around the kitchen sink and this morning when I woke up, the shower was indeed ant free. I am suddenly religious. Pray with me that this will be the last of the ant posts!

Gavin re-released his solo album today with a second disc of all the songs in a stripped and redone version. Not to be missed is the bonus track, the Sam Cooke classic "A Change Is Gonna Come". I know, I know... Gavin! Gavin! Gavin!

Have I mentioned Neal's Art Show is coming up on August 24th??

Last Saturday I was in San Diego for what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend by the pool with cocktails. Instead, I was dropped in the middle of Nerdville (a term to be used in an endearing form) as it happened to be Comi-Con, the world's largest comic book convention. You have heard of the intensity with which people attend a Star Trek convention? Imagine having the fans of every genre of comic and science fiction in a 1x1 mile radius. Storm Troopers walked the streets freely as well as aliens, spidermen and Romulans (see, even I know a thing or two about Star Trek. When not punching kitties, Rory taught us that Romulan Ale is illegal in the Federation. Yes, it was that kind of weekend). And of course, I ended up at dinner with Hayden Christensen, also known as the young Anakan Skywalker, or more commonly known as Darth Vader. I may as well have been in downtown Rome eating pizza with the pope. The whole thing got me to thinking how bizarre this person's life must be. To want to be an actor and to seek such a coveted role, and to step into the shoes of one of pop cultures most famous villains. Will he ever be taken as a serious actor or has rising to the absolute top on the first time out be the best beginning and the saddest end? As even the busboys were having their picture taken with him, I knew I needed to get out of  Nerdville and return to the sanctuary of my home. 

Last night I watched Bill Clinton speak at the Democratic Convention. Oh it made me ache for a new leader. It reminds me of a metaphor a gal by the name of Better Midler used recently. She spoke of how we are currently in a bit of a cloud. Fear and uncertainty run rampant in these trying times. Everyone has an opinion. Some have become afraid to share them, some should just keep their mouths shut, but we are each entitled. The majority of us don't want to talk about it for the fear of talking about it might make all of the fear a reality.  But underneath all of the fear and chaos, there is hope. Hope in knowing that in time we are going to be okay. That we are in the need and want of change. That we will endure and come out the other side okay. With hope and faith grows courage and change. Sort of like when "in the Spring, the seed under the snow, grows and becomes the rose"...

I warned you my thoughts today were random...

I think tomorrow I will write a poem...

for now, it is time for bed...

They are taking over the world. But I refuse to let them win.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to another invasion of ants in the kitchen. I am beginning to feel like a war vet with all of the flashbacks I have during the day of the countless ant bodies I have killed. The endless lines of corpses that I have had to spray down with cleaning agent and wipe up with a paper towel. The several Ant Bunker's I have flooded. Which by the way, if you think that hosing them out of their holes is mean, don't! They don't drown! Instead they mock me, turn it into the Olympics and perform synchronized swim routines (and I swear, if you put your head close enough, you could hear that it was Lionel Richie's "Say You, Say Me" they were performing to).

I was supposed to leave yesterday morning at 7 for San Diego. By the time I cleaned up yet another attack of the resilient ants, it was 8:00am. Knowing that I would be gone for the weekend, I decided it best to apply some precaution to my kitchen so that I didn't return home Sunday night to find everything in my kitchen removed by the ants (I had a scary vision of them carting Sophie out the door during a copa-cabana-conga-line with Sophie on her back with her legs in the air. You know how drunk she is by the afternoon. She would have just thought she was at a Pearl Jam concert).

So I took the advice from that website I posted yesterday and sprinkled red pepper flakes all over the counter. As I was sprinkling, there were already ants scouting out the area. But, I left them thinking they would hate the pepper flakes and run home to their friends and say, "turn back, he is on to us! Pepper flakes everywhere! We'll never make it!". That thought left my mind when I watched one of the ants walk up to a flake, and throw it on his back. I could hear him laughing at me. I decided I must've read the website wrong and got out the cayenne pepper. I generously sprinkled it everywhere. On the counters. Along the trim. It is a good thing Sophie doesn't climb on the counters.

My kitchen looked like the surface photos of Mars. But I didn't care, because I had faith, that they would get the message and go.

I returned early from San Diego. I think my ants are either Mexican or Italian because they seem to love the spicy food. That is what I deducted when I saw them dancing on my counter top at what appeared to be a mini-rave when I walked in. Again, my head was close enough and I could hear a techno remix of Lionel Richie's "Running With the Night". They were treating the pepper concoction like you would sawdust at a carnival. I couldn't grab the Windex fast enough.

My counter is now a muddy mixture of kitchen cleaner, raving ant bodies, cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. The scene is grim. My patience is thin. I needed to vent because now I have to clean up the grossest mess to hit my kitchen since the time I made tomato soup in my cuisinart and the lid came off.

I have to go and clean my kitchen now. I will keep you posted on any further ant developments. And please, if you have any ant stories or remedies of your own, all you have to do is click below this post where it says 0 comments. You can submit an anonymous post (just include your name in the box) and you won't have to join the blogger. Help me Obie-won, you are my only hope!

Ants Marching

So apparently my one entry regarding the mosquito eater was not enough for the insect community this week. It turns out the ants have wanted their moment in the spotlight.

I hate ants. I absolutely hate them. They are everywhere in my house right now. It seems to be ant season. They do this to me every summer, and I swear this one is the absolute worst.

On Tuesday night when I came home from work, they were forming a conga line around Sophie's cat food and partying like it was 1999 inside the dish. It was no wonder she wouldn't stop screaming when I got home. They were coming down from the ceiling (your guess is as good as mine, and yes they were walking upside down on the ceiling like a Lionel Richie song), along the wall and all over my kitchen floor. So I got out my kitchen cleaner (because do we ever actually own ant spray? in the bathroom, you use hair spray, in the kitchen, it is counter or window cleaner... generally whatever spraying substance is closest at hand (and don't try to tell me you do it differently)). I had to immerse Sophie's entire dish in the sink full of water to drown their party while I sprayed and sprayed the floor, wall and ceiling. I cleaned my mess and cooked some dinner in my freshly cleaned kitchen. Happened to turn on a rerun of Ellen and I swear to God, she was complaining about an ant problem that she had.

Her story was very similar to mine and the whackiest thing is that she talked about the ants love for the cat food! Her advice (and please feel free to pass this on): place the cat's dishes in pie tins filled with water. BRILLIANT. They can't swim to the food when it is on an isolated island in the middle of a tin!

They can however form a newer and longer line from the same entry point in the ceiling and wrap around the entire perimeter of the kitchen to find the cat food that is now in the trash, soapy, sprayed with cleaner and littered with dead ant bodies. It was the longest black line when I arrived home the following night (Sophie's cat food perfectly ant free, she just has to strain a little to get her face in the middle of the bowl). Again, out came the window cleaner (I am almost out) and the ceiling of my kitchen now has an evenly designed peppered border of any bodies. Oh yes, this is wonderful imagery. I have to actually look at it. Be thankful I haven't taken pics and posted them.

So today is day number three and I was once again cleaning them this morning, because while I was sleeping, guess who was busy at work? Ants, ants, everywhere ants. They are in my shower every morning (where they get sprayed down the drain). I am probably sleeping with them and I don't even know it.

They are a rotten creature. Ellen joked that they are actually just there to help us clean. After a dinner party, "oh, don't worry about the dishes, the ants will take care of it". Real funny, if there wasn't such truth to it.

I have often wondered what Richard Gere does. I know he is not "Ant Free" no matter how good his Buddhist kharma is. But if he believes that by killing any living creature is bad, what does he do when his cat's food is being devoured by ants? Does he relocate them? Does he play Lionel Richie in the front yard and hope that they take their party there?

If I can do anything to help you as I continue to battle the battle (because I am convinced they are trying to take over the world), I am more than happy to help. I have just come across this fantastic website with various alternatives to getting rid of ants... if we ban together, they can not take over our lives!!!

http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/health/ants.html

and on a similar note, I don't think it is an accident that DreamWorks made a movie about annoying creatures (ants) and voiced them with some of Hollywood's most annoying personalities (Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and Woody Allen). The name of the film: ANTS.

You are what you eat...

There is a Mosiquito Eater flying around my house. I am less intrigued on how he (or she) got in here (all the windows are screened) and more curious about the fact that he (or she) is defined by what they eat. What if, instead of calling me Bob, I was known simply as "Tomato Eater"?
 
It would probably be a good way to keep me on a diet. "Tomato Eater" sounds somewhat acceptable... but "Whopper Eater", "Hot Fudge Sundae Eater" or "Chicken Fried Steak Eater", would each likely land me in therapy.

Please insert one quarter

Is it just me or does time fly faster the older we get? Now that I am 30, it feels like Christmas is next week and after that I should be getting ready for summer. When we were kids in school, I remember a quarter, which was only 9 weeks, always felt like an eternity. A school year, which was around 9 months, always felt like 2 years. Now you have to have a baby inside you to slow down time like that. We also couldn't wait to be older. Maybe that was why time felt so slow. We were so eager to be "grown up". How else do you explain, "I am 6 and a half". Can you imagine meeting someone and saying, "I am 32 and a half"? They would think you were out of your mind. But maybe it would slow down time, because lately I feel like when I blink my eyes, 6 months passes. One minute a friend tells me they're pregnant and the day after I am attending the kid's High School graduation.

Yesterday I was watching my friends 9 year old son play video games. He was playing Harry Potter on the Sony Playstation and as a spectator, it was like watching a movie. The graphics and the motion are so realistic and so far advanced from when I was 9 years old. To me, Donkey Kong, Frogger and Ms. Pac-Man were revolutionary. I owned a Vic 20 Computer which was the ugly step sister to the Commodore 64... the precursor to the MAC and PC. (side note: Ugly stepsister syndrome has followed me my whole life as proved by the fact that in the mid-nineties when everyone began driving VW Jetta's, I was driving a VW Fox. "What is a Fox?", people would ask. What is a Vic 20? I owned one and I still don't know.) It was essentially a keyboard you could hook up to any TV and turn it into a computer. But I doubt you could actually type an online journal or print anything. You certainly couldn't have a website.

To add insult to the ugly step sister syndrome, I would get these gaming magazines that would have pages and pages of codes that you could type into your computer (it was MS DOS based) and when you would "run" the program, you could create actual moving graphics. By graphics of course, I mean flying commas and asterisks... but still after three hours of data input, at least I had something to watch and feel accomplished. They also had a few actual games that you could build... those could take up to 6 hours to input. And in the end you were thrilled if it appeared to be as advanced as "Pong". Two bars on each side of the screen that moved up and down while a ball (again the asterisk) bounced between it. Think of it as a very slow, poor man's, air hockey. I often wonder why I gave up... I could've been Bill Gates had I continued to learn computer codes. Now I know my computer lingo about as well as that three years of German I took (nicht gut).

My relationship to video games always came in specific spurts of obsession. I have never been a "gamer", but when they were around, it was always hard to look away. I would spend hours at the quik mart down at the corner watching others spend their paper route money plunking in one quarter after another just so they could be knighted "High Scorer" in the neighborhood. People would line their quarters up on the front of the machine to determine they were next in line. Sometimes there would be up to 5 quarters up there and I would wonder, "how would you know which one was yours"? I remember a boy on my little league team, Todd Albu, owned an Atari AND an Intelevision. Going over to his house may as well have been going to Disneyland for the amount of excitement I felt. In 1988, my friend Matt had a Nintendo. Weeks would come and go of us playing Super Mario Brothers. I never cared much for the fighting games or blowing things up, but mazes and jumping and flying I could do for days. Case in point when Stephanie got "Super Mario World" for her birthday (which I still think was more for Joe than her) in the summer of '93. We were so determined to get to the next level you would have thought we were curing world peace if we actually made it to the end.

At a friend's house a few months ago, I discovered Karaoke Revolution on Playstation 2. You sing into a headset and your tone and pitch determines how well your character dances and performs on screen. It is sheer genius. A couple of Christmas' ago, I received a Playstation, my very first machine I have ever owned. It came with all of these hip new games with graphics similar to the Harry Potter game. I was too confused and ran out to the store immediately and for $9.99 I bought an Atari disc. On it were Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede and the original Donkey Kong. They called it a retro bundle. I don't play them often, but when I get in the mood... watch out! There is just no beating the originals no matter how great Hermione, Ron and Harry look fending off Lord Voldemort.

Eating all of those dots before you get eaten by Pinkie the Ghost. Or getting your frog across the high paced lanes of traffic and onto the logs that are rapidly floating down the river. Poor Mario jumping over those logs that the damn monkey won't stop lobbing at him. Call me sentimental, but with time going by so quickly forward, it is nice to escape into a video game that takes me so quickly back to my youth... and that's not always a bad thing. I just wonder what it will be like in 20 years when kids are able to play the next wave of video games and the Harry Potter game is considered primitive and "retro"... Will they even know who Pac-Man was? Perhaps if I become more anxious to find out, time will actually slow down and I will have more time for playing Centipede...

You are bright and witty

Today at lunch I received a fortune in my fortune cookie that read, "You are bright and witty". Of course I thought, "I know" and, "what a dumb fortune". Then after I tossed it aside, I got to thinking... what if I were some boring and slow person? Because we all know people who are... I am not talking about the people who are slow to get a joke (it sometimes can take me up to 24 hours to laugh at a joke)... I am referring to the people who are generally crabby... they understand a joke, but don't laugh at it... maybe they are just a little slow on the social uptake... What goes through their head when they open a fortune like that? Do they think to themselves, "yeah, I am bright and witty" or are they actually aware of their shortcomings and think, "I wish I were... if only my mother had loved me more and kids in school had teased me less"... really all this is proving to me is that I shouldn't eat Chinese food for lunch!

Happy birthday yesterday to Annie Friedman and Peggy Harris and tomorrow to little Stephanie Jones, who at 29, is seeming a lot less little... wasn't it just yesterday that we were teenagers playing at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in our red underwear?

I did a lot of crying this afternoon...

I feel so vulnerable this evening. A little lost. A little sad. A little angry. A little disgusted. Extremely frustrated. I don't want to get on a soapbox and turn anyone off. We all have opinions. The greatest news is that we live in the home of the free and the land of the brave, so we are allowed to share and express them. We don't have to agree with them, but we are allowed the freedom to share them. And when someone has a good one worth sharing, I am so thankful they feel the confidence to share. Because a good opinion can spark a good conversation. And dialogue can be a magical thing.

Today I sat in a theater and cried off and on during the duration of the new film Fahrenheit 9/11. My opinion that I want to share with you is this: go and see it. No matter what you feel about Bush, or the war, or Michael Moore. No matter what you already know or think you know or know you don't know. If you are adamant about not wanting to put another 10 cents into Michael Moore's pocket (again, because you are entitled to your own opinion), pay to see White Chicks and then sneak into F9/11. And if you want, email me and I will send you a synopsis of White Chicks or you can just pay and go see it again (think of it as keeping me employed).

Again, I am not going to get on my soap box and tell you the "whys" and reviews and reasons you have to see this movie. Personally, I pulled a lot of information out of the movie that is currently affecting my core. And no, before you judge without having seen it, it is not propaganda being lobbed by Moore. The footage speaks for itself, with or without Moore's narration.

We live in a pretty great and amazing place here in the US... Shouldn't we be using our wealth and celebrity as a country to help our neighbors and friends who are less fortunate, instead of stepping on them and keeping them down just to make ourselves feel more powerful?

Again, me just having my own free opinions and questions...

p.s. I will be dropping a check in the mail tomorrow for $20 to the Democratic National Fund. It is the least I can do.

p.s.s. If you have seen the movie and are filled with questions and need for more dialogue, I found some really great things on Michael Moore's website. Also, if you click here to the right where it says comments, you too can share your voice and let me know what you think either about the movie or what I have written...

The Psychic From My Birthday Party

For those of you who met with him at my party or wanted to and never had a chance, he has emailed me the following info for either a follow up or a first time visit... enjoy!

BOB'S BIRTHDAY PSYCHIC NOW AVAILABLE FOR READINGS AND HEALINGS!!

Matt Kahn uses his intuitive abilities to channel wisdom of the highest vibration directly from the Universe. This creates a reading and healing in one unique experience. Discover your soul's potential, transcend energetic barriers and learn to create the "you" you've always yearned to be!

Matt is available for private and group sessions. Mention Bob's birthday party and receive a 10% discount on your next reading and a complimentary issue of Matt's online spiritual magazine, "Integrated Awareness".

MATT KAHN -- Intuitive Channel and Messenger of the Universe
(310) 618-1114
openchannel77@aol.com

Gavin De Graw at the House of Blues...

Last night I saw Gavin De Graw at the House of Blues in West Hollywood. It was the first time I have ever witnessed a rocket of fame from it's ignition to it's first official orbit. I was first introduced to Gavin in July of 2001 during one of my favorite trips to New York. My friend Lori Jean kept raving to Erica and I about her friend Gavin who played the piano and sang at a local bar on the upper west side. Friends recommending their friends talents is always a crap shoot... we were in New York to see Madonna, I didn't really feel like seeing some guy play the piano. Fortunately, I had my first cocktail at 11:45am and never stopped... so by the time she was recommending him again, I was so in the bag, I would have followed her to a strip club to watch the ladies... Gavin was just starting out at Wilson's... playing there every Monday night... outside of the crowd he was attracting every Monday night, no one knew who he was. When he sat at the piano, he just seemed like a scruffy little guy. Then his fingers hit the piano and he opened his mouth... Within in minutes I knew I was in the presence of the second coming of Billy Joel and Sam Cooke. When he closed the night with Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", you could hear a pin drop as the crowd sat mesmerized in silence. He was the real deal. I kept in touch with him and told him if he ever played LA, I would be there in the front row. When he did finally get a gig at The Mint, Erica and I found ourselves begging people to go... everyone was busy and most people said they would catch him the next time he was in town. I think to say there were 30 people in the room was a generous number. At least 20 of them were there to see the act after him. I was so frustrated as everyone in the back of the room talked through the first half of the set. And then, just like in New York, he had taken control of the room and by the time he sang "Hallelujah", the only sound in the room aside from Gavin and his piano was the clink of ice against someone's glass as it slowly melted. Shortly after, Clive Davis signed him to J-Records and announced him as the next big thing. As Gavin recorded his debut album, he played a few more shows at the Mint, each time it got harder and harder for me to get a reservation as word of mouth got out on him. His song "I Don't Want To Be" became the theme song of "One Tree Hill"... a show I tuned into only to hear Gavin in my living room each week, but quickly learned to love on it's own merit. He toured last year with Maroon 5 and I missed the shows. So you can imagine my reaction last night as we arrived at the House of Blues and the sign read "Gavin De Graw: Sold Out". I felt a surge of pride and excitement seeing him on stage a bona fide rock star, fans dripping from the balcony and Gavin shaking hands with the front rows as he sang. I felt a surge of envy and greed knowing that I was now sharing him with the world and that we would never be in the intimate settings of Wilson's or The Mint again. I felt a sense of hope inside as the whole experience reminds me that with enough talent and dedication, the world is your oyster and that anything is possible. It is a gift, a privilege and an inspiration to see someone like Gavin succeed. And that is a story I felt needed sharing... one that I am hoping to read the next time I am questioning what possibilities lie in my own future.

For more info on Gavin, you can visit his website... www.gavindegraw.com I promise it is a CD worth buying!

You can click here to read about the original "New York Trip" that started it all...

Also, there is a really great fan site at www.gavindegraw.us

deciding I have something important to say...

I have been wanting to do this for years, I just didn't realize it had a name and that everyone on the internet felt just as inclined... Everyone thinks they have something important to say, so why should I be any different? I decided I would keep this mostly for myself since I can't remember anything that I do... if you find it amusing or educational or self indulgent, who am I to stop you from having your own opinion? You can create your own Blog and spend each day complaining about anything that I have to say... because that is the glory of living in America... freedom of speech... and without any further ado... I am going to exercise my right...