He wasn’t a man with much blood on his hands
Though he’d shoo human trespassers off of his lands.
But the time came for him to take one of his stands,
And Dave had to murder a roach.

In the heat of the night, he intended a run.
He was donning his shoes in the last of the sun
When an insect came out for some frolic and fun,
And Dave had to murder a roach.

First, Dave noticed the bug with a cry and a yell.
He got up so quickly that he almost fell.
But what happened next, none would ever foretell:
Young Dave bravely murdered a roach.

The shoe on his hand, he did slam on the floor.
‘Twas too late for the pest to escape by the door.
Dave’s aim was so true, the roach scuttled no more.
And thus, Dave — DAVE! — did murder a roach.

Dave and I are newly returned from Maui, as I am straight unable to shut up about, apparently. While there, we enjoyed all the usual things one does on a Hawaiian vacation: visits to the beach; drives through lush, picturesque valleys and rainforests; visits to interesting lava formations; pineapple.

One thing that has typically been missing from our trips to Hawaii is the opportunity to do much shopping. Once a tourist has bought a miniature carving of King Kamehameha and a necklace with a hula girl pendant whose skirt and each leg move independently, you’ve pretty much shopped the state. Or so I thought, until we got slightly lost on our second day and ended up driving past an establishment called Women Who Run With Wolves (subtitled: More Than A Boutique). In a gigantic stroke of luck, when we went back later, the clerk was busy with other customers and had her back to me nearly the whole time, so she didn’t notice me as I went about shooting photos. And here they are.

When is the store open? Oh, 10ish to 6ish. Women who run with the wolves can’t be bothered with any tool of the patriarchy — especially an alarm clock.

Another sign on the door carries on the motif, sort of: one doesn’t run with these wolves; one waits one’s turn on the thoroughfare.

Inside, the theme gets a bit confusing. We may be dealing with fierce goddesses who have no compunction about baying at the mood when the spirit strikes. But these goddesses also need someplace to hang their earrings and bracelets when they’re getting ready for bed.

It’s hard to imagine taking home the fairy mermaid surrounded by goldfish minions, and placing it in a home without decorative masks on the walls.

Or, if not masks, then a wolf-emblazoned dreamcatcher, cheek-by-jowl with a tiny reproduction of “Starry Night.”

In case you couldn’t tell what’s under the dreamcatcher, by the way, it’s a couple of fairies hanging out under a pentagram.

Is the journal with the fairy goddess presiding over her forest 100% eco-friendly? I can’t even fucking believe you would ask that. OBVIOUSLY IT IS.

Buddha in front of some Keane/anime girls next to a ballet-dancing pewter frog, with like a geisha. Also there’s some lingerie and a red crystal fortune-telling ball.

“Live well. Laugh often. Love much.” Right on, my sister. AWOOOOOOOO!

]]> http://www.taraariano.com/women-who-shop-with-wolves/feed/ 9 http://www.taraariano.com/the-greatest-moment-of-the-trip-so-far/ http://www.taraariano.com/the-greatest-moment-of-the-trip-so-far/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 04:37:29 +0000 Tara Ariano http://www.taraariano.com/?p=1991

If you haven’t been following me on Twitter, first of all, why. And second, you’ve been missing dispatches from the vacation I am currently on, with Dave, in Maui. (So far, he’s documented the first day here.) Today was action-packed: we went to a lava formation shaped like dragon teeth, where we also happened upon a sea lion just chilling out in a puddle. And then we hiked down a treacherous hill to a crazy blow hole in yet another lava formation, where water from the shore splashes up in explosive, geyser-like sprays.

But before any of that happened, we were in the car chatting, and Dave said something, and I said “Exactly,” except the “-ly” part was overtaken by an unplanned, unexpected, super-loud burp I couldn’t have possibly recreated for a million dollars, and Dave laughed for five minutes straight until he cried and pronounced it “the greatest moment of the trip so far.”

And it was.

11:16:24 AM Tara Ariano: Here’s a question: will it take until noon for a screenwriter to sell Disney a pitch based on this story: http://jezebel.com/5559066/married-couple-discovers-that-they-crossed-paths-as-kids-at-disney-world
11:16:38 AM Julie Klausner: ha
11:16:47 AM Julie Klausner: amy heckerling can direct it!
11:16:52 AM Tara Ariano: !
11:16:53 AM Julie Klausner: or werner herzog
11:16:54 AM Tara Ariano: I will see that movie.
11:16:56 AM Tara Ariano: Either one.
11:17:12 AM Tara Ariano: In the Herzog version, the boy grows up to be a grizzly bear.

Yes, “TCA” is my monogram. (Middle name: Crouton.) But it’s also the abbreviation for the Television Critics Association, which is having its summer press tour right now. Who has two thumbs and got to attend, despite not being a member? This guy. (They only take new members twice a year, so I hope to be fully initiated in time for the winter tour.)

Seriously? This is so much fun. It’s like fantasy camp for TV nerds. If you, like me, watch so much TV that your unread New Yorkers date back to March, you should read all about it. My blog posts are here; you can also follow @SlingSays on Twitter for live tweets from the panels.

12:41:10 AM Tara Ariano: Where did you put my birth certificate after you scanned it?
12:41:14 AM Tara Ariano: It’s not in the folder.
12:41:24 AM Dave Cole: Are you sure? I put in all together.
12:41:33 AM Dave Cole: Did you look in folded paper, etc?
12:41:47 AM Tara Ariano: The envelope that it had been in just has Leah’s organ donor card in it now.
12:41:49 AM Tara Ariano: I’ll look again.
12:42:10 AM Dave Cole: I just scanned the two small ones. If it was a long-form thing, I didn’t scan that
12:42:32 AM Dave Cole: There was a old one and a new one
12:42:53 AM Tara Ariano: It was not a long-form thing.
12:42:55 AM Tara Ariano: I know.
12:44:04 AM Dave Cole: I put them together in a pile. Either on my desk or the console. Maybe Marcela moved them
12:44:24 AM Dave Cole: Check my desk’s bundle of papers
12:44:58 AM Dave Cole: I’ll double check I didn’t take them… one sec.
12:45:01 AM Tara Ariano: There’s a pile of stuff on the shinebox beside your desk, but that looks like the scans, not the originals.
12:45:12 AM Dave Cole: Yeah I mean on my desk
12:45:18 AM Dave Cole: near the lamp
12:45:25 AM Tara Ariano: There’s no pile.
12:45:39 AM Tara Ariano: Or rather, there’s a small pile of receipts and stuff, no ID.
12:46:40 AM Dave Cole: No I don’t have it. Did you check the console desk
12:47:11 AM Tara Ariano: There’s no pile.
12:47:17 AM Dave Cole: Ok.
12:47:28 AM Dave Cole: Check the console pull out and my desk drawer
12:48:14 AM Dave Cole: Check the floor under the console. Maybe it fell down. When you say you checked the folder….
12:48:26 AM Dave Cole: You mean the manila folder or the passport folder?
12:48:37 AM Tara Ariano: I already said I’d check the folder again and then you told me to look everywhere else.
12:48:40 AM Dave Cole: The green passport folder
12:48:44 AM Tara Ariano: I meant the file folder.
12:48:52 AM Tara Ariano: Did you put it in my passport cover?
12:48:54 AM Dave Cole: Yes
12:49:06 AM Dave Cole: Stuffed everything in there
12:49:18 AM Dave Cole: Which I told you.
12:49:33 AM Tara Ariano: I thought you meant the FOLDER, like the file folder.
12:49:35 AM Dave Cole: But you are getting The Old
12:49:39 AM Tara Ariano: WHATEVER, I found it.
12:49:42 AM Dave Cole: YEAH!
12:49:47 AM Tara Ariano: The green thing is not a folder.
12:50:02 AM Tara Ariano: There is a passport cover on my passport, which I keep in a travel wallet.
12:50:18 AM Tara Ariano: Don’t try to turn this around on me just because you have an inferior vocabulary.
12:50:27 AM Tara Ariano: Why I would even need to bring a birth certificate I don’t know but whatever.
12:51:33 AM Dave Cole: I told you it was there and I drew you a map showing a green folder and I called it the Green Doctrine and I changed my name to old greenie.
12:51:53 AM Dave Cole: I painted my nuts green too. REMEMBER?
12:53:01 AM Tara Ariano: I don’t miss you anymore.

Well, soon it will be, according to Consumerist. I took the ban on liquids SO PERSONALLY. I had gotten mocked so hard by Dave and my sister for overpacking — and then as soon as I calmed down and got better at it, BAM, there was the TSA to screw me over just because I didn’t feel like going out to Ricky’s (or the Canadian equivalent thereof, if there were one, WHICH THERE ISN’T) (Ricky’s is awesome) to get tiny bottles into which I could decant all my various ointments and tinctures. Which is difficult when one of my products is aerosol foundation. Anyway, I finally did manage to cobble together a carry-on-only flying strategy involving tiny bottles, a quart Ziploc, and as many samples as I can cadge whenever I go to Kiehl’s, but it is a hassle, so 2009 can’t come soon enough! Woo!

As I mentioned in passing in my post about the boxes, my parents moved to Karachi, Pakistan this spring. My dad is a university registrar, and he was headhunted to come fill the same position at the Aga Khan University; they also headhunted my mom to come run HR for them. This big baby party my brother-in-law Derek’s parents are throwing tomorrow is the occasion that has brought my parents back to Canada for the first time since they moved. I knew that the flight back brought them from Karachi to Dubai, and then Dubai to Toronto (…I think; I believe they didn’t stop in London this time), and that they were flying in Business Class (of which I was already jealous) on Emirates Airlines — only the most luxurious airline in the world. Apparently Emirates Business Class is so fancy that the first time they went to Karachi for their interviews and had to take Air Canada Business Class on one leg after having been on Emirates for the first time in their lives on that trip, they were bitter. About Business Class! I’m psyched to get the exit row in Coach so I get an extra seven millimetres of leg room!

Anyway, they came over to the house after they got into town, and my dad started telling us about their flight. They like to get on the plane as early as possible so that they can get all situated (and because they fly Business Class, that is their right), and were already in their seats when a guy came up to them and said he thought they were in his and his wife’s. They compared boarding passes and learned that Emirates had accidentally sold these particular Business Class seats twice. They called over the flight attendant, a few minutes passed, and then she came back, called for my dad, and told him he’d been upgraded.

It’s at this point in the story that I think I shrieked, “OH HELL NO.”

But wait! My dad has to tell the flight attendant he isn’t alone; he’s with my mom, and she’s also in a double-booked seat.

SO THEY BOTH GET UPGRADED TO FIRST CLASS. ON EMIRATES!

“OH YOU SONS OF BITCHES,” I yell. At my parents! I mean, I think they took it in the petty, jealous spirit in which it was intended.

“Did you take A SHOWER?” I couldn’t help asking. No, they weren’t on one of the very newest planes. But based on their description, I think the photo at right represents what they did get to enjoy for fourteen hours: massively reclining seats, a privacy screen they could put up between them if they’d so chosen, giant TVs. The photo doesn’t show them getting their feet massaged by naked ladies, but I’m pretty sure that’s also part of the service.

And I will be lucky if I get a free beverage on my next flight. Clearly, I am in the wrong line of work. Or need to move to a part of the world where it might be assumed that I’m just the most special of Dave’s several wives and get treated accordingly.

Oh, shit, y’all, she’s flying again! Look out, bad kids and deranged seniors: if Maria Bello is on your flight, she is not going to stand for any shenanigans.

Can I just give two quick snaps up to MSNBC for this story advising parents on how to travel with children? Because SERIOUSLY. I know that flying with children is not a pleasure and I’m not one of those psychos who hears a six-month-old crying on a plane and starts bitching that his family should have taken the train. Kids are kids; they can’t always be controlled. But there is a certain kind of parents — certainly not represented among my brilliant and perfect friends who are parents — who get into a public space with their kids and decide it’s up to the community to keep an eye on them. And I’ve been on a flight where the attendant had to get on the speaker and announce, “We are ready to push back but we can’t move the plane as long as there are children standing in the aisle. YES YOU.” Like, it sucks to get kicked off a flight, like the family cited in the story, but on the other hand, if you know your kids get kind of hyper when they’re cooped up? Bring a selection of books and toys to distract them with. Pack some snacks so their mouths will be occupied at least some of the time. And if all else fails: little bit of NyQuil. CHILDREN’S NyQuil, if you must. And don’t assume it takes a village to get your kid across the country.

Oh my God, I just remembered something else I don’t think I blogged at the time: when we were flying from Kona to Los Angeles (about a six-hour flight), we left at around noon local time, had a stop-over in Honolulu, and got to Los Angeles…I forget what time we landed, but by the time we picked up our rental car and got to the hotel, it was 11 PM. And directly behind Dave and me were sitting two parents and their two kids under, I would say, five. The older one was old enough that when the plane was starting to push back, he kept loudly counting backwards, like we were about to blast off — which was cute, until the parent sitting with him went to try to do up his seatbelt and he started screeching. Irrespective of the fact that the child (I hope) gets buckled into more complicated straps whenever he gets into a car, if you’re old enough to be able to count backwards, aren’t you old enough to understand “Stop screaming in the plane”? AND, when we got off the plane in L.A., we overheard them telling someone that they were flying on from there to Boston. Sure, bring your kids on the red-eye. Great planning! I hope their next seatmates got that kid after his dose of Children’s NyQuil. Or possibly Grey Goose.

I suppose I am supposed to be more sympathetic to the challenges of parenthood now that I have a perfect niece who is perfect. But apparently not.