Bad Mother's Day Gifts

Mother's Day is an annual wake up call for me. It requires me to spend a great deal of time on Amazon mulling through various items while simultaneously dealing with profound guilt. 

I live 3000 miles opposite my mother. I am not a warm, devoted daughter. I've doled out my fair share of impolite quips, unsympathetic lectures and aggressive narcissist hyperbole. 

This is not the first year the holiday falls during a period in which mother will not answer my daily phone call. Radio silence is in its second month. It began with a heated exchange on the social responsibility of nutrition. 

So, what do I send this year? 

From the brainstorm:

A John Grisham novel. Paperback. Costco. Maybe Nora Roberts. I know she will use that.

Sometimes I build a package myself and bring it to the post office. Because of all that effort and the $10 it takes to ship, those boxes tend to be disappointing.

Once I sent flowers.  That seems boring. And they die. 

Another time I sent Clif Bars and a DVD. That was a bold move. She liked the bars. Hmmm.

My most successful gift was the classic hand written letter. This years would not stand up to any of the archived issues.

Food (in general delivered via Stop & Shop)

Hawaiian Lei 

Robot vacuum

Travel pillow

Blender 

Gardening tools

Jack Bauer's 24 on DVD

Some sort of Bible

Yoga mat

But today I will purchase a book on nutrition. The topic she was so inflamed by. Maybe without me distracting, the information will reach her. 

I'll add a second book to the order. Ishmael. Maybe that'll make her smile. 

Bakon: Bacon Flavored Vodka

Thank you Geekologie.

Could do a martini. Might like with an oyster.

Would ruin my cosmo.

Recipes below:

Does not have Swine Flu 2009 H1N1

I don't have it. Neither do you.
Now, get back to work.
Or get hysterical about something that will kill you.
Like boredom, loneliness, absence of purpose/meaning.
And stop hating Mexicans.
Start eating bacon.

CHAMPAGNE & APATHY: Common Mistakes When Receiving Oral Sex

CHAMPAGNE & APATHY: Common Mistakes When Receiving Oral Sex
Hysterical/graphic account of the Rube Goldberg of fucked up sexual encounters. If you like, tell Buster. His penis earned each and everyone of your laughs.

Broke LA: Free Improv that is actually Awesome

Broke LA: Free Improv that is actually Awesome

My buddy Cameron Fife is one of the Freedom Snatch six. They are rapidly witty.

Freedom Snatch has won the I/O Improv Cagematch for 28 weeks running. They are that good.

Go see them. I/O West in Hollywood; Thursdays @ 11PM.

Your IT guy working the pole

Straight from the bowels & exploitative archives of YouTube.... PoleDanceFan presents the pole dance.

His interest in actual proficiency is admirable, but there is clearly something missing from his routine.

How to Make Medicinal Snake Wine

This exotic tonic was introduced to me by one of the top orthopedic surgeons in the US and a fantastic travel photographer, Bob Derkash. Every sip and following inhale tastes like snake.

Vietnamese herbalists have been prescribing snake wine to patients for centuries. It is said to cure everything from low libido to back pain. Besides flying to Vietnam and buying a bottle of it in a back alley for $25, why not make your own.

Snake wine is made by trapping a small cobra in a bottle and drowning it in rice wine. The dead snake then ferments in the wine releasing chemicals that transform the alcohol into a mystic tonic.

STEP ONE:
Get together your ingredients. You'll need gloves, knife, alcohol cleaning solution, hook for handling a live cobra, funnel, corked glass bottle, rice wine and of course, the live snake.

STEP TWO:
Trap the snake's head under your shoe. Hold its tail in your hand and stretch the snake out. Watch out that it doesn't get a bite out of you. That would probably ruin your winemaking experience. And snake wine doesn't do much for snake bites. Ironic, we know. Cut small slits at the head and tail. Rinse the

STEP THREE:
Slice the snake from head to tail and remove its innards.

STEP FOUR:
Rinse the inside of the snake with the cleaning alcohol solution.

STEP FIVE:
Place the snake in the bottle. Cork the bottle, as the snake will still be wriggling. Get the wine and funnel in place.

STEP SIX:
Find the snake's heart and separate from rest of innards. Place in jar with snake.

STEP SEVEN:
Repeat with more snakes until the jar is 2/3 full.

STEP EIGHT:
Fill jar with rice wine, cork and let sit for at least 3 months.

Legend says snake wine can last as long as 500 years. The longer it ferments, the more potent its medicinal properties become. This is practiced in China, Vietnam, Fuji and other Asian and Pacific Island countries. Scorpions have also been used or supplemented for snakes.