Words and Thoughts — June 29, 2023

Hello again, alleged readers. I don’t know where you live, and you don’t know where I live, and I’d like to keep it that way. But I’ll tell you what, where I live, it’s hot out. Too hot. About four times a day I walk over to the neighbors’ house and drape myself over their air conditioning condenser, however it doesn’t help. I can’t find rocky road ice cream anywhere, so I’ve just started freezing Miracle Whip with M&Ms in it. I ran over my garden hose with my lawn mower, and by the time I realized it, all 50 feet of hose were either shredded or wound around the blades. So now, without a hose, when I want to cool off in the yard, I have to just sort of awkwardly wedge my body up against the house and position myself below the spigot, turn it on, and lay there for a bit.

I’m just not built for the heat.

A couple days ago, between condenser drapings and my afternoon spigot wedge, I found out from the guys filling in pot holes out front that my cousin is getting married. Elated, I called her, and left the following voicemail: “Hey! Big ol’ Brenda! I heard y’all are fixin’ to get the government involved in your romantic endeavors. How about letting Cousin Stav plan the shindig?”

She hasn’t called back, and due to the time sensitive nature of my offer to plan her wedding, I would ask that you fine folks please keep an eye out for a woman named Carol. That is almost certainly my cousin. If you could let her know I called, I’d really appreciate it. She probably won’t answer to Brenda. Hates when I call her that.

Now, I can’t give away all of my wedding magic and secrets, but I will certainly share just a bit of nuptial panache with you as an advance thanks for relaying my message to Carol.

Here are the top five things you need for the perfect wedding: 

1. When I was protesting the Narita Airport in Tokyo, I met Chisana Bobu, an amateur sumo wrestler who was under investigation by the NSK for knocking down an opponent at a pro-am match in Osaka and trying to dislocate the opponent’s shoulder by sitting on the guy’s arm with his butt crack lined up on the dude’s arm and attempting what’s called a flathead twist. You NEED this guy at your wedding. Put him at whatever table you want. 
2. I wrote an original song about why more people should watch the WNBA. If you can find someone that sounds a little like Björk, but Björk if she was from Texas, to sing this, this should absolutely be the first dance song.
3. Bring in a flock of geese and put them at Table 14. Make sure you have a few pallets of bread on the table. And yeah, I can hear it now, “But Stav, bread isn’t good for geese”. Go and watch a goose devour an entire piece of bread, and two thirds of the forearm of the child who was feeding it said bread, and come back and tell me that these animals are going to be caused any trouble by bread. Bread will keep them at the table. Geese have a slightly different Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs than you or I do. They have only two levels of needs: 2) They want to ruin your day, and your life. 1) Ever so slightly ahead of ruining you is their need for bread, and the digestive processing of that bread. Make sure you have enough bread at Table 14.
4. Roller derby.
5. For an extra $2,000, I can almost certainly get one of the guests to go up on a small platform in the corner of the parking lot and play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a timpani for most of the evening.

I’m serious about that bread. Have enough bread.