So yesterday was not only Christ the King but also Archirritant's 50-somethingth birthday, and Rich Bonomo had a birthday party for her. Some of the regulars (such as the B Boys) were not going to be there while other regulars (notably Kathbert and Anna Banana II) felt they should make an appearance even though they are not all that fond of Archirritant either. I had no plans to show up, but then I realized here was Hardingfele's chance, since she had been thwarted at every turn (the only times Archirritant didn't show up for free food were those few times Hardingfele came to meet her!), but I was pretty secure in the knowledge she would be at her own birthday party. So I went and brought Hardingfele along.
The first thing Hardingfele did was tell Kathbert she had not given Voodoo Head enough time to work. Kathbert had given Voodoo Head to Rich in a brown paper bag, as if he were lunch, then he gave it to me, then I gave it to Hardingfele. Kathbert said she was getting rejection letters left and right since Voodoo Head had come into her house, so she wanted it out. (I would think that is sort of an improvement over her previous situation of not even receiving acknowledgement from prospective employers, but I can see her point.) Voodoo Head actually comes with an instruction manual, which Rich told me with some alarm contains "a novena!" and A-Joz wondered if Kathbert had followed the instructions closely. When she heard about the brown paper bag, she started laughing. "Of course he wouldn't work if she stuck him in a bag! Way to disrespect Voodoo Head!"
Archirritant must have been taking etiquette classes, because she asked other people questions - and didn't even interrupt their answers! - instead of completely dominating the conversation. As you may have already guessed, Archirritant and Hardingfele totally hit it off, and this morning Hardingfele sent an email to A-Joz and me saying how she seemed like a wonderful conversationalist. Luckily A-Joz was more than willing to back me up in saying Hardingfele must have caught her on an exceptional day.
The worst moment of the night for me came when Archirritant cut and distributed the cake, which was made by her ex-husband and contained lots of milk, cream and butter. (Archirritant is lactose intolerant so Rich made her a lactose-free cake.) Somehow I was the last one and we had run out of cake plates, so it looked like I wouldn't get any. (This was not like that scene in Office Space, since there was plenty of cake left.) Rich said, "So everyone's good then?" and I got mad, being descended from both kinds of Irish (see my previous post on this subject), so I slammed my hand on the table and loudly announced that I had not gotten any cake. Perhaps this was Archirritant's goal, to make me look infantile, but Rich simply got some more plates. Archirritant cut a tiny sliver and put it on her own plate, so I handed her the new plate I had just received and said, "Here's my plate." Kathbert said I should take the sliver instead, since Archirritant couldn't eat that cake, and Archirritant tried to hand me the plate, saying, "I wanted a bigger piece." "So did I!" I retorted. (At this point in the retelling, A-Joz probably would have had milk coming out of her nose, had she been drinking it.) Archirritant cut ANOTHER sliver, but her ex-husband came to the rescue and gallantly offered me his normal-sized piece, taking the sliver for himself. (I said to A-Joz that I didn't know who came off worse in this exchange, Archirritant or me, and she said that she had to vote for Archirritant, since she felt it was rude to give everyone else a normal-sized piece of cake and me a teeny one.)
After dessert, Hardingfele and I had to go to her house to take care of her daughter Rock Star Tailor, since her husband was heading somewhere at seven. We played Trivial Pursuit with her, and the game went something like this: I asked her, "What are pride, greed, envy, lust, sloth, gluttony, and wrath?" and she said, "Vatican City!" and after Hardingfele and I finally stopped laughing, we gave her a pie piece. Not surprisingly, she won the game. (Another Famous Hat tangent: a few weeks ago my best friend and I were trying to think of the Seven Deadly Sins and could only come up with six. When we looked them up, we had been missing Greed. Perhaps this is because greed is the only one we don't suffer from!)
I have a theory about why Archirritant (who was born on the first day you can possibly be a Sagittarius) and Hardingfele (who was born on the last day you can possibly be a Sagittarius) get along: they are both Sagitarrii. I had to look it up to be sure for Archirritant, and it took me to a web page with a picture of a female centaur who looked just like Pebbles Flintstone, I kid you not. When I showed it to Rich, he said he always thought Sagittarius was male, so then we speculated that there must be centaurs of both genders or there would never be any more centaurs. I said how my sign was a mergoat and that's even weirder, and Rich (who has no such identity crisis, since he's just some guy pouring water) didn't know what I meant, so we googled the image of Capricorn. Wouldn't you know, the first picture I clicked on explained the fish tail, saying it was the Babylonian god Ea, a goat who emerged from the sea to bring wisdom to men. That story sounded familiar... so I looked up the chi'wara, an antelope-like mythical creature from Mali that brought wisdom to men, and Rich and I speculated that they came from the same, very ancient myth. (It could be worse - my best friend is stuck in eternal virginity, one of the B Boys is two different diseases - cancer and crabs! - and worst of all, Kathbert bemoans the fact that she is the only inanimate member of the zodiac. I mean, scales? What's up with that? Why would that be in something called "little animals," which is what zodiac is Greek for?)
So here, for all five of my regular readers' edification, are pictures of Capricorn and Chi'wara to prove, once and for all, that they are the same thing.
Famous Hat
3 comments:
I found arch-irritant to be a lively and engaging conversationalist, but then we did not talk politics, so perhaps my assessment was not entirely accurate. As for the other woman being afraid of dogs, what can I say CATS are superior and plusher creatures.
But bunnies are the superiorest and plushest of all!
No matter what you say, A-Joz and I still agree that Archirritant is archly irritating.
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