Love...

I don't know if I should be admitting this, but for quite some time now I've had a strange, obsessive love for alpacas. It's true, and it feels good to get it off my chest; "Hi, my name is Holly and I'm an alpacaholic."

For those of you who are alpacaliterate and don't know what I'm talking about, an alpaca is a South American herd animal bred for their lovely coats which is turned into fiber used for textiles. (Visit the Wikipedia entry here.) That's all well and good, but I love their little faces and the fact each one looks like they have bangs. Subsequently, I want to put glitter and makeup on alpacas the world over.

Fake eyelashes, pink blush, rhinestones, I want to dress up each and every alpaca like they were a ballroom dancer. Forgive me if you feel this is cruel, I want to do this out of love.

One day I hope to travel to Peru and see alpacas in their natural surroundings, which I picture might be something like this:
(Scene opens in a village marketplace resembling something between a Moroccan bazaar and a sidewalk sale at Fashion Place Mall. There are brightly colored dresses hanging on either side of the street, and lovely alpacas are mingling throughout the booths, politely saying hello to each other as they bat their eyelashes and shop for new clothes. And handbags. And shoes.)

Holly: (Wide-eyed and full of wonder, is taking in the sight when a lovely brown alpaca walks up to her.) Well hello there, Mr. Paca.

Alpaca: (Bows his head.) Please, call me Al.

Holly: Al, you are lovely. Might we go back to my hotel where I can plug in my curling iron and give the front part of your hair the "Farrah flip" made so popular in the 70s television show "Charlie's Angels?"

Al: Of course! (nuzzles the size of Holly's cheek with his fuzzy, little face) But don't forget the fake eyelashes and makeover!

Holly: I love you, Al.

Al: I love you too, Holly.

(And so it goes. The two walk through the marketplace, hand in hoof, into the sunset.)

Beautiful, isn't it?

Many people know about my love for alpacas. And glitter. And glittering alpacas. So this showed up on the dry erase board at work today:



I'm really glad that my co-workers support me so that one day I might hope to join AOBA and raise alpacas for fun and profit.

Out with the old...

Without turning this blog into yet another political rag, W's final address tonight got me thinking about our country and the optimism I am starting to feel with the prospect of a new leader of the free world. I also got thinking about the Bush administration finally vacating the White House, and wondering if the prospect of their soon to become "ex-girlfriend" status is leaving the Bushies a little bitter. Sure, we've already seen the current administration's little jab by not letting the new first family move into the Blair House two weeks early, but will it go beyond that?

Come to find out, most vacating administrations leave their former offices and living spaces completely trashed. Allegedly Clinton's administration all but stuffed chicken bouillon cubes into the incoming President's shower head, turning to high school pranks by cutting phone lines, gluing drawers shut and rendering door locks unusable. Hell, forget the chicken bouillon cubes, it sounds like they did everything but leave a hearty upper-decker.

And now, apparently Bush's folks have done the same thing. Vacating their offices, it seems they have already done some damage. Why do people have to trash their former living spaces? Isn't it good enough just to leave? Why stop to short-sheet the bed or fill a blocked-off doorframe with packing peanuts?

Maybe I'm relating to this since my former neighbors finally vacated the other half of my duplex just a few weeks ago, and they left the place such mess I am shocked I don't have a hazmat incident over on my side. I got home today and was able to see a bit of the work the maintenance guys have ahead of them, and the guys who lived there completely trashed the place. It is going to cost so much money to gut it that firebombing might be a better option. Maybe I'm still just a little bitter that one of them died inside the apartment leaving me to deal with any creepy residual paranormal activity that might prevail.

So, my plea for tonight is this: do a good deed in 2009 and leave wherever you go in the same, if not better, state in which you found it.

That goes for you too, Lame Duck.

p.s. Many of you might be scratching your heads right now, asking yourselves, "Chicken bouillon cubes?" Yes. It's one of my favorite pranks to pull on someone. You squash the cubes into the shower head and then screw it back on. When the unsuspecting showerer gets in and turns on the water, they are bathed in chicken soup.

I believe beef cubes work too, but aren't as effective.

p.s.s. Many of you might be scratching your heads right now, asking yourselves, "Upper-decker?" I'll let you research that one on your own, but probably not while you're at work. From what I've read, it could be considered extremely offensive to upper-deck one's dead grandmother's casket.

Happy Inbox

Things like this in my inbox make me happy for carried-over vacation time:

The tooth saga continues. Still. Again.

While my tooth saga continues right up to my leaving for the east coast tomorrow evening, I have to admit there are some good people in the world. I finally decided to get a second opinion on why I was getting the dental run around since March. (Which, incidentally, is the last time I had a good night's sleep. Wednesday March 26, to be specific.) I decided to get a second opinion at Sugarhouse Dental Spa because if I was going to have to pay, I wanted a massage and a latte out of the deal. Not only are the folks who work there fantastic, but they immediately whisk you into a massage chair while you fill out your paperwork, and offer you a coffee.

Dr. Graham there confirmed everything my dentist had said about the debacle that has turned out to be my whole mouth, but he explained it in a way that made everything seem all better, and while he didn't fix anything today, I felt okay about the whole thing. As soon as I get all squared away, I'll return in six months for my cleaning.

And another latte.

And a paraffin dip on my hands.

So I leave on a jet plane tomorrow night, and when I return, I'll get that pesky root canal and maybe finally a full night of rest. While I'm excited to head to Boston, I am continually amazed about the cool stuff we have right here in Salt Lake. Namely, Larry Miller's Motorsports Park. Having always liked cars (my mom says I got the name Holly after her favorite movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's. My dad says I got the name Holly after his 1966 Corvette which had a Holley carburetor. I guess everyone won.) I found this particularly interesting.

The other night I met the host of the following video who had been out at Larry's raceway all day doing donuts in Mustangs and drooling over Shelbys. Rough job, for sure. And when I get back from Baahston next week, I'll have to play tourist in my own backyard and check out this great car museum we seemingly overlook here.



You can check out more at Garage419. It doesn't suck.

Greetings from…

While driving back to Salt Lake from St. George today, I started paying attention to, remembering and pondering those crazy little slogans that are on signs whenever you drive past a small town. I don't quite know why these signs are necessary. It's not like I'm going to be driving somewhere and think, "Woah! There's a city that boasts the world's largest chunk of cheese! Better pull over!"

To my knowledge, we don't have a sign like that when driving into Salt Lake City. Unless you count the sign just past the airport that reads, "Welcome to Salt Lake City, home of the 2002 Winter Olympics." I don't think that's the same thing, that's just holding onto the past.

With that, I bring to you some of my favorite city signs while driving the stretch of I-15 from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah:

My very favorite: "Iron County— Saluting the Triple Deuce!" A single deuce deserves acknowledgement. A double deuce merits applause. You salute the triple deuce.

1.) "Welcome to Cedar City! 'Festival City, U.S.A.'" If I were seeking out a festival, I wouldn't think of Cedar City. Sure, the Shakespearean Festival is extremely big and important for the economy there, they even won a Tony Award. Sure, that was years ago. And it was a regional Tony Award. So it's not really a Tony Award. Move on and cut the cord, Cedar City, it's not like you hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics.

2.) "Beaver City— Mountains of fun! Best drinking water in the U.S.A." I always snicker a bit when I travel through Beaver, and now that I know it's "Mountains of Fun," that snicker is more a snort. Not as much as a snort as when Beaver's sign slogan was "Live a little!" Because well... I don't want to be living at all in Beaver. Guys I've driven with believe differently. It's this whole drinking water thing that gets me, I just read Forbes "Best Drinking Water in the U.S." list that came out earlier this month, and Beaver was no where to be found on that list. The list mentions San Diego, Calif., Jackson, Miss., and Mobile, Ala., have the lowest levels of lead, Tucson, Ariz., and Billings, Mont., have the lowest levels of turbidity (because I hate it whenever I'm feeling turbid) and Beaver, Utah doesn't rear its head, err, tail. Turns out that in 2006 the National Rural Water Association awarded Beaver the title of "Best Drinking Water in the Nation." That's no Forbes Magazine! That's rural Skeeter taking gulps from the pond! And what's the water like now? Perhaps now, two years later, Beaver water is leaded and turbid, but still "Mountains of fun!"

3.) "You're in Sandy City— The 34th Safest City in America." Okay, come on Sandy City, 34th? What kind of a number is 34? If you were one of the top 10, maybe, certainly one of the top 5 then I could understand the benefits of that. But 34? Now you're stretching. For some reason this reminded me of this scene in Clerks:
Dante: This is different, this is important. How many? Well?
Veronica: Something like… 36.
Dante: What? Something like 36?
Veronica: Lower your voice.
Dante: Wait a minute, what is that anyway? Something like 36? Does that include me?
Veronica: Uh, 37.
Dante: I'm 37?

4.) "Parowan City— Where good things happen." I've been to Parowan twice in my life. Neither time did "good things happen." Ever. I've had "good things happen" in Plano, Texas, I've even had "good things happen" in Wilmington, Delaware. When I think of "good things happening," they're not happening in Parowan. Weird things happen in Parowan, I am convinced, as I passed another billboard emblazoned with an exploding mushroom cloud with the headline reading, "What do you do when disaster strikes?" Underneath it was a URL for Parowan Prophet which turns out is some creepy freak sitting in his Parowan basement conversing with the religious cosmos as a self-proclaimed, modern day Nostradamus. Next, he'll start in the movie Conspiracy Theory 2: Where good things happen.

I'm creating a sign tonight and hanging it in my window: "My house. Where I drink wine straight from the bottle and Guinness flows free." Has a nice ring.

Peaceful Warrior

This is the type of vehicle that people drive in Fillmore, Utah. I'm guessing it's pretty standard for many small Utah towns: Panguitch, Delta, what have you... the bumper reads, "Peaceful Warrior," which I find extremely ironic. Note that I also took the picture from inside my car because I was afraid for my life.

"Blow on them"

I was sitting poolside, rocking green toenails. Like on The Big Lebowski. It was awesome.

For other picts I've taken in St. George this weekend, click here. There aren't many, as it's too sunny and warm to stay inside typing right now.

Make it so...

My dream is finally coming true, if only I lived near Burbank! A casting call was issued for people to play cadets in the new Star Trek movie. Here's the catch, the potential cadets need either be "ultra plain-looking" or "ultra perfect-looking." I can't decide in which category I'd fit, because some days I look in the mirror and go, "Ugh, I'm strange looking," but too weird for either "plain" or "perfect." Besides, what defines "ultra plain-" or "ultra perfect-looking?" What if somebody's "sorta' plain-ish?" What tips the scales and makes them less ultra-plain than a really ultra-plain person? A limp? What if they had a limp? Or does that just throw them over the edge to "super-coo coo-looking?" Am I over-thinking this?

Since I can't decide in which category I fit, and since that categorization seems to change for me from day to day, maybe I fit one of these other criteria:

• Long neck
  
• Extremely large head (Compared to what?)
  
• Wide-set eyes or close-set eyes
  
• Large forehead (Paging Tyra Banks, Miss Banks to your transporter, please.) 
  
• Short upper lip (Just what is a short upper lip?)
  
• Over- or under-sized ears and/or nose
  
• Facial deformities
  
• Pure, wholesome looks (I think I'm in!)
  
• Emaciated
  
• Regally poised and postured
  

So if you're interested in auditioning, take your freaky-assed, skinny, stick-up-the-keester, short-lipped self to Deep Space Nine! And while you're in Burbank, wave a big hello to the SoCal writers on strike for dealing with many of the real freaks in the industry.

Philadelphia, in pictures

I haven't had a chance to upload ALL of my pictures I took in Philadelphia, but here are some if you want to check them out on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/princessgolightly/

Now you know my Flickr address, so you have no excuse not to regularly check out my pictures-- and I have no excuse not to be more regular in taking them. Gotta' use that fancy camera!

Keep watching for one of the strangest pictures I've ever taken, when we decided to go on a ghost tour through the "City of Brotherly Love."