The quote Scene of the Crime unquote

The summer malaise has hit me. I pretty much only want to chill out with one of these:

This is a delicious shaved ice slushie. And Dumbcat looking like he wants one, too. NO SLUSHIES FOR YOU, DUMBCAT! Only cat treats. You don’t like things that smell like fruit, they make you make faces and hide under the couch. And that there is a throw-rug that looks like a stretching tiger because reasons. (“Reasons” were that it was on clearance when a store was closing, and it is a THROW RUG that looks like a STRETCHING TIGER. Who wouldn’t have purchased this thing?)

I bought a shaved-ice machine (which is kind of like a snowcone machine only the ice is finer) and it’s just about the best thing ever. So pretty much this is the summer of shaved ice. ALL THE SHAVED ICE. Both as snowcones and as the ice in beverages. It is delicious and cooling and it is all I want to put in my mouth at the moment because the humidity is INSANE.

But for all the summer-melting-into-my-couch malaise, I suppose I could write some words down. As long as the air conditioner is on high. Is the air conditioner on high? DUMBCAT. GO CHECK IF IT IS.

Man, he’s really being useless for anything but cuddling and sleeping right now. (AW, THAT SLEEPY FACE!)

We’re just going to have to assume the air conditioner’s on high, then. Too much work to get up and check on that. Thanks for nothing, sleepy adorable Dumbcat.

Here’s what’s up in the land of Amy, because I’m too tired to rant and I have actual things to blog about but my brain’s decided not to put them together into something both intelligent and readable.

This weekend, I went to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to see (and review) a play.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? Stockbridge? Come on, I must have at LEAST one reader who made the same connection I did the minute I looked up where the theater was.

How about now. Ringing any bells now?

WHAT ABOUT NOW?

YAY! Yep, I was totally in the town where a very young Arlo Guthrie was arrested for littrin’.

I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.

Now, let ME tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

It’s very pretty. It’s very green. It’s very small. There was a cop hiding in some trees (no, not like a monkey, not like hanging OUT of the trees, but HIDDEN by some trees, like he was being tricky) looking for speed demons (a tribe I am a not-so-proud member of, sorry to say) and I saw him and slowed right down because I didn’t want to be locked up and have them take away my wallet so I didn’t have any money to spend in the jail cell there, and my belt so I didn’t hang myself for speedin’.

(I did, however, say, “OMG OFFICER OBIE?” when I went past the cop, which my dad said was probably not the brightest thing to do. “They’re probably pretty sensitive about being called Officer Obie in that town,” he said very seriously.)

Real Officer Obie!

Stockbridge, Massachusetts is not the town where Alice’s Restaurant is. Both the restaurant and the church were in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (which is about 15 minutes away.) But Stockbridge is the town where Officer Obie (a real person, you guys! It’s totally a real story, if not a little exaggerated, for flava, as any good storyteller will do) worked, and where Arlo was locked up, and where the garbage was dumped. I totally was driving a historic path. I wanted there to be a sign saying “Site of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacre, (with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that)” but there wasn’t a sign. Mom said probably they were embarrassed. “EMBARRASSED?” I said. “Well, it made them look a little dumb, Amy,” she said.

Anyway, Stockbridge made my GPS go insane and tell me to turn onto lawns where there weren’t roads (and it wasn’t like I hadn’t updated the GPS lately, or the roads had been worked on recently – those were old-timey roads) and it was also the town where Verizon went to die. I’m not really sure WHY, as all the other people there seemed to have connectivity, but when I first got there, I was able to call Dad (he gets super-worried when I go to other states; I think he thinks I’m going to become an expatriate or something) and then my phone was all “NO BARS NO Gs!” and I couldn’t do a thing with it. So I had a lot of time to kill, and I wrote a very long email and thought, whatever, it’ll send once I’m on the way home. But randomly it sent at around 8:15, once the show started. So what the hell was happening with that? I also attempted to send a text, but THAT didn’t send. And therefore people thought I was dead. If I knew emails were randomly going to get through Officer Obie’s Cell Phone Deadening Net, I would have emailed people telling them “I am not dead! Just in a very small town where once, my most beloved Arlo Guthrie was Public Enemy Number One.”

Apparently, this no-cell-phone thing is a problem in Stockbridge. Huh.

The play was amazing. AH. MAY. ZING. Treat Williams was great (I didn’t expect him not to be, but was pleased he lived up to my expectations) and I didn’t realize I would be seeing ANOTHER star!

Jayne Atkinson! She’s been in many things, but I know her best from Criminal Minds.

Hate to say it, Treat Williams, and you will always be in my heart, but Lady Jayne, here, out-acted you on that stage. She was BRILLIANT.

The show was The Lion in Winter, which I’ve heard of, but never seen (or read, actually.) It’s the fictionalized story of a Christmas in 1183 with King Henry II, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, their three sons, and the King of France and his sister. Henry and Eleanor’s first-born son, next in line for the throne, has just died. Henry and Eleanor each want a different son to take his place; the sons each have their own reasons for wanting the crown. It’s snarky and it’s black comedy at it’s darkest and it’s intelligent and it’s wise and it’s a little heartbreaking and it made me laugh and it made me tear up a few times. Just an amazing, amazing night of theater. (The author, James Golding, is William Golding’s brother. The Princess Bride? Yep. Talent runs in that family.)

I readily admit I’m a sucker for an intelligent, well-written show that makes me think. Give me one of those over fifteen mindless comedies any day. This was utter perfection for me. I never wanted it to end. (Although I kind of missed having phone connectivity. But on one hand: excellent theater! On the other: a phone that works! It’s a total Sophie’s Choice for the digital age, people.)

This was just supposed to be a little post and it got majorly long, dammit. But, Arlo! And good theater!

Fine, fine, I’ll wrap it up with this:

This weekend, we have a VERY PRESTIGIOUS VISITOR coming to stay Chez Lucy’s Football. (And also, of course, Chez Dumbcat.)

Amy’s Mom!

Amy’s Mom is coming to spend the night Saturday night. We are going to have an adventure!

The first part of the adventure is called “Amy’s Mom has never driven here by herself before, and has also never used a GPS and is worried it will drive her into a lake.” I keep reassuring her it won’t but she doesn’t seem reassured. What’s up with that, I’m totally reassuring. Plus I don’t live very close to many lakes.

The second part is called “I get out of work early on Saturday!” Yep, 2.5 hours less answering crazy people’s calls on Saturday, it’s a total hoot. (I actually only work one more Saturday this whole month, as I have the last two Saturdays of the month off for vacation. What WILL that place do without me?)

Then we’re going to dinner. Friend A. said I should bring her to his favorite restaurant which is a nice Italian place I’ve never been to. Mom doesn’t like things that are scary or new or weird (hmm, wonder where I got my palate from?) so I asked if a nice Italian place was ok with her and she sounded relieved.

THEN we are going to see a play that I’m reviewing and she’s totally excited about seeing a play with the reviewer. (It’s not so exciting, but shh, don’t tell her that.)

Then I’m coming home to write the review and it’s going to be WAY past her bedtime of 9pm (I know, I KNOW, that’s insane, she likes to get up at the asscrack of dawn to exercise, I often wonder if I’m adopted, too) and she will sleep and Dumbcat will be both amazed and excited someone’s sleeping on his couch and will most likely bounce on and off of her fifty times in the night. He doesn’t think it’s obnoxious, he thinks he’s just showing you he loves you and knows you’re there. “HI HI HI!” says Dumbcat, 50 times a night. “This is a niec cowch, rite? I sleepe on theis cowch at nitteime, too! WE ARE THE BEST OF FREINDS NOW! COWCH FREINDS! I showe my love by leeping on your spleen!” says Dumbcat to overnight visitors who sleep on the couch.

I love yew, cowch! Mommee, stop taking piktres of my catface. I am sleepin.

Then the next day she is going to church (which I nicely found for her, but also nicely said I would not be attending with her, a girl’s gotta put her foot down somewhere) and then we’re going to celebrate The Nephew’s fourth birthday.

THE NEPHEW IS TURNING FOUR!

I know, who can even believe such a thing? When I started blogging? HE WAS ONLY ONE! This is craziness and I don’t know if I love how fast he’s turning into a little grownup. I have a whole story about the quest for the perfect nephew gift, but that will have to wait for another day.

Then Amy’s Mom will head home, as will I, and I will most likely collapse on the couch (“BFF! YOU ARE ON MY COWCH!” Dumbcat will say with glee as he leaps on and off of my liver-area with his full weight on all four paws) and think about what a VERY LONG WEEKEND THAT WAS. Filled with MUCH ACTIVITY.

So be prepared for reports of Amy’s Mom hits the big city with Amy, which will hopefully not lead to either of us crying, getting lost, or yelling.

(“WHEN WILL THE LAYDEE BE ON MY COWCH?” says Dumbcat. “I VOMIT ON IT? TO MAEK IT MOERE HOMEY FOR HER?”)

Four more sleeps, Dumbcat. Or, in your case, 57 million more sleeps, because you nap ALL THE DAMN TIME. And no, please don’t throw up on the couch, go do that on the rug like you usually do, right where I walk when I first wake up. Thataboy.

Happy Wednesday, internets. May your humidity be low and your air conditioners be frosty.