Happy Friday! It’s going to be local news day today. Sometimes it needs to be local news day, because the weird shit starts piling up, and I need to tell someone about it. I HAVE HUNDREDS OF SOMEONES.
Here’s a funny thing and not at all on topic ARE YOU AT ALL SURPRISED. Even though I’ve mentioned this blog on Facebook a number of times, most of the people I know in real life apparently don’t pay any attention to what I say on Facebook (which is actually really telling, don’t you think? My Twitter people know if I’m in a bad mood based on the nothing but the tone of a 140-character tweet while my Facebook people, who know me in really real life, don’t even know what I’m up to even if I SPELL IT OUT FOR THEM? Just an observation) so when I mention something about my blog to them, they look at me like I’m insane or maybe making it up.
Typical conversation (please note, I don’t often bring UP the blog, unless the conversation has organically steered itself to it; it’s a huge part of my life, but I don’t want to be THAT GIRL, who’s all I HAVE A BLOG MOMMA LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME, you know?):
Friend: Your what?
Me: Blog. I have a blog. That people read. And comment on.
Friend: YOU DO?
Me: Yes.
Friend: Strangers read it?
Me: Yes.
Friend: Like, more than five?
Me: Yes.
Friend: How many. How many strangers.
Me: I don’t know. A few hundred?
Friend: Total? Like, ever?
Me: Daily.
Friend: WHAT? Why do you have a double life?
Me: Because I’m Maxwell Smart, or maybe Superman? I don’t know. I’ve mentioned this on Facebook a number of times.
Friend: YOU HAVE?
Me: Yep.
Friend: WHAT?
This sometimes goes on for a very long time and makes me a little squirmy. I’m not sure if the squirminess is because they don’t believe someone like ME would have that many people reading my blog, or because I’m not comfortable bragging. I have a very old-timey “we don’t brag about ourselves” ethic going on. Like, it’s ok to be PROUD of oneself, especially if you did a lot of work for something. But BRAGGING about it is in bad taste. If someone compliments you, it’s ok to take the compliment, but then you change the subject because that’s skating into bragging territory. I know. I’m a throwback, especially in this day and age. It’s just uncomfortable. And it smacks of needing attention. If you DON’T beg for it, and you get applause for something, it means a lot more. Think about it. What compliments mean more, the ones you get organically, or the ones you had to pry out of someone? Well, obviously the former, right? The unsolicited ones? This is a tangent within a tangent. Are you so so frustrated right now?
I’m not really going anywhere with this, other than every time this happens, it never fails to be awkward. I feel like I’ve been hiding this secret identity from people when I really haven’t. I promise I’m not hiding my top-secret blogging identity from you, people. And if I didn’t think you all would get totally bored and annoyed, I’d post my posts to my personal page. I don’t know, it just seems weird to mix my real life and my blog life that much. Does that make me a total weirdo? It’s ok if it does. It wouldn’t be the first time.
NOW BACK ON TRACK.
OK, there’s a lot of craziness happening here in the ol’ Capital District lately. Let’s talk about two things. What do you want first, naked ladies or bears falling from the sky?
Probably you want naked ladies but you have to wait for those. Bears come first.
The Albany bear! Or, at least, one of them. (All photos totally ganked from the Albany Times Union. I AM NOT A THIEF. Don’t arrest me, Times Union.)
OK, so! Starting on May 1, we started seeing all the black bears here. We live in a nice area that’s got both city and country, so sometimes we see wildlife. It’s not uncommon. I see deer in the parking lot at work sometimes because the parking lot abuts some trees. I always smile when I see those deer. Wildlife make me happy. I also see a lot of squished wildlife. Raccoons. Things that I think are woodchucks but after they’re squished just look like brown piles of ick. Skunks.
But we don’t see a lot of bears.
Since May 1, there have been four black bear sightings in the areas surrounding my town. No one’s quite sure if these are four separate bears, or if these are the same bear and he just travels, or what’s up with the bears. Bears have been in Albany, Schenectady, North Greenbush, and Guilderland. None of these are my town, specifically, but they’re all within 15-20 minutes away.
THIS IS VERY EXCITING. I’ve never seen a wild bear! Only ZOO bears. I want to see a bear!
According to the news, bears are on the move because these are adolescent bears and their moms have kicked them out of their basement and told them to get a job, slacker. So they’re looking to stake a claim of their own and maybe find a lady-bear of their very own to do their laundry and let them come home drunk at 2am and get some nooky. (When I told my dad this story, he said “that’s typical liberal behavior. Of COURSE those bears are heading for Albany. THOSE ARE LIBERAL BEARS.”)
So the most recent bear was in a tree in someone’s back yard, and at first, the DEC was all, leave him ALONE, he’ll come down when he’s READY, only he was as lazy as Dumbcat and he wasn’t going ANYWHERE. He was all napping and shit. He was stretching out all long and yawning and being adorable and he was totally the dirty hippie of bears. So the DEC decided, once all the people showed up to rubberneck and take photos, that it was time to tranquilizer dart that bear and move him along to somewhere less peopled.
He’s saying, “Where’s Amy? I want to hang with Amy. I WAS PROMISED AMY.”
So they shot him and once he fell out of the tree there were many mid-air photos of that bear falling like a sack of wet hair. FLOP. Sleeping bears fall HARD, you guys. But don’t worry! That bear was FINE. He fell in the leaves. The DEC was all, “DON’T WORRY WE DID NOT HURT THE LAZY BEAR.”
Look at him flop out of that tree! He’s like a sack of laundry, that bear. FLOP.
Here, if you want to see all the photos, you can click. Also, you can follow the Capital Region Bear on Twitter.
Now, after I had written the majority of this post, a NEW article went up on the Times Union site. It was the SADDEST. So, this one bear (not THIS bear, another bear) was captured and released far away. Then, like the cat, it came back. Then, captured. Sent farther away. IT CAME BACK AGAIN. Guess where it showed up? The campus at the University at Albany. THAT BEAR WANTED AN EDUCATION, YOU GUYS. But the DEC was all, NO, BEAR, you DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION! YOU DON’T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL! And the DEC killed it because it was not able to be rehabilitated. They said was one naughty bad-news bear. Aw! Bear! I’m going to drink a 40 tonight and pour a little out on the ground for you. All you wanted was an education. And maybe to join a fraternity, and drink too much out of red Solo cups, and eat Denny’s at 3am. It’s ok, bear. We all wanted that, at that age. Well, not the fraternity part, I can’t help you with that, bear. That’s just bad decision-making skills. But you didn’t need to DIE for it, bear. I’m sad about this. That poor bear, yearning for book-learning.
Listen, bears! I am not far from where you’ve been hanging out, and I have MANY TREES in my back parking area. They are TOTALLY BEAR FRIENDLY TREES. Please come and visit! I will give you bear-things! Like…um…honey? And I have some berries in my freezer I will thaw for you. And…shit, what else do bears like. Fish? I WILL BUY SOME FISH FOR YOU, BEARS. I think we will be the best of friends. Also, I won’t tell anyone you’re here, because otherwise, the DEC will either relocate or kill you. I’ll hide you, bears. This will be like a Disney movie only with more cussing and there won’t be a princess or a love interest because those things are stupid. Just me and my bear, yo, hanging out and having some berries.
OK, bear time is over. Now it’s time for BARE time. Bare NAKED time, that is. Like that? That’s how you know I’m a really truly serious writer, with the segues like that. You can’t buy THOSE in a store. (Like that? That’d be my new catchphrase if I had a kicky single-gal comedy.)
Yesterday, a woman in Ballston Spa (that’s up by Saratoga, where the pretty ponies race in the summer) walked into the Curtis Lumber (which is exactly what it sounds like, a hardware store/lumberyard) and she was bucky-ass naked, yo.
This is security footage from the Curtis Lumber with her jiggly bits blurred out. I told my dad about this and he was SO MAD her jiggly bits were blurred out. He thought it was a government conspiracy.
She walked around like it was fine, and asked people what time it was, and told people to have a nice day as she left.
“’No one wanted to say much to her,’ (Curtis Lumber manager Bob Eakin) said. ‘It’s not a situation you want to be involved in.’”
Aw, poor Bob Eakin. You come to work at your job, which is probably not great, let’s face it, you manage a lumberyard/hardware store where the logo is a weird anthropomorphic house, and then a lady walks in and she’s all naked. What do you DO? Well, Bob Eakin decided, NOT TODAY, LADY. And ignored the situation. He didn’t even kick her out. He just let the naked lady wander around all naked until she was done shopping.
Anthromorphic things like this are a little creepy, yeah? Yeah.
Here’s my question. If you’re going shopping naked, is a lumberyard/hardware store really your best choice? I guess you thought either more men would be there to see you, or you’d stand less of a chance of being kicked out? Or maybe she just really, really needed a hammer, like one of my my Facebook friends said today? I don’t know what is happening with this decision process.
Then she went across the street to Stewart’s. Stewart’s is a local gas station/convenience store chain. I like Stewart’s. They are friendly and have good ice cream and iced coffee.
See? Cute, right? IT DOESN’T NEED NAKED LADIES IN IT.
While at the Stewart’s, one of the employees chose to engage the naked lady in conversation.
“’The manager said, Ma’am, are you aware you have no clothes on? She was kosher and cool about it, and the manager told her she needed to leave,’ said a Stewart’s employee, who only identified himself as Terry.”
This conversation is one that I would pay COLD CASH MONEY to have been privy to.
“Ma’am? Are you aware you have no clothes on?”
“WHAT? ZOMG! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”
“Ma’am? Are you aware you have no clothes on?”
“*I* have no clothes on? *You* have no clothes on. This whole *Stewart’s* has no clothes on!”
“Ma’am? Are you aware you have no clothes on?”
“Yes. And are YOU aware you have TOO MANY clothes on?”
Also, “she was kosher?” People still say that? I wasn’t aware. It sounds so silly. Stop saying that, people who still think this is a thing. STOP TRYING TO MAKE FETCH HAPPEN. FETCH IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
So then she left the Stewart’s (two things: a., I like to call it “THE Stewart’s,” much as I like to call Kmart “THE Kmart” or Walmart “THE Walmart” because it makes me sound like a hillbilly, and b., I hope she got one of their iced coffees, they really are stellar) and the cops picked her up (I don’t know, were they following her car? How’d they know where to find her?) and questioned her to see if she’d lost her mind or was off her meds or whatever. Here. I’ll let the Times Union tell you the rest, it’s the best.
“By the time the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office picked her up, she had her clothes back on, Eakin said.
“Murphy said she is charged with public lewdness, a misdemeanor.
“‘While the defendant claimed she was merely expressing her freedom to be fully liberated by walking nude into Stewart’s and Curtis Lumber, this alleged conduct is actually a crime under the penal law,’ said Murphy in a statement. ‘Surprisingly, mental health found no psychiatric issues whatsoever.’
“Lafleur was released pending a future court appearance in Ballston Spa and could face a maximum of 90 days in jail if convicted, Murphy said.”
OK. Let’s take this one step at a time.
I like the word “lewd” because it sounds like what it’s describing. You have to draw it out for maximum effect, though. Lewwwwwwwd.
I know someone with the last name Lafleur. He’s like the least crazy person ever. I certainly hope he’s not related to this person. Or, if he is, I hope he talks to her and gets more info on this situation, because I AM SO EFFING CURIOUS WHAT IS UP. No, that is NOT a euphemism.
“…expressing her freedom to be fully liberated by walking nude into Stewart’s and Curtis Lumber” makes me laugh so hard I snorted a little. THAT’S how you celebrate your freedom? Don’t you listen to country music? Freedom isn’t FREE, lady. Also, it’s not even the fourth of July yet. Yes, it was hot as balls Tuesday and sticky and disgusting, but wear a damn tank top and some shorts or something, come on.
“Surprisingly, mental health found no psychiatric issues whatsoever.” You know when that statement was made, the words “surprisingly” and “whatsoever” were emphasized to the maximum. Possibly with ALL CAPS. She wasn’t looney. Just naked. SHOCKING.
Also, Jim makes me laugh like a moron.
@lucysfootball @patrixmyth heh. . . “penal” code. . . heh
— Jim W (@blogginglily) May 17, 2012
I was going to mention the irony of “penal code” being in this article, but Jim did it for me. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting today, Jim. Much appreciated.
So we’re all about bares and bears here in the Capital Region! We like both animals and nudity, apparently. Oh, and homophones.
(Oh, psst, Ken made it to Merka all in one piece. I don’t know about you all, but I’m pretty jazzed about this development. It’s like you could feel the awesome quotient of the country go up about 90 kabillion percent late yesterday afternoon. Welcome back to Merka, Ken. I’m so excited you’re here. Have so much fun bon vivanting.)
Happy Friday, beautiful people! Have a fantastic weekend. Oh, and keep your clothes on if you need lumber or iced coffees. You can take them off for other reasons. Gallivanting. Tomfoolery. Flimflammery. We’ve discussed this on Twitter and decided it was alright. And hey, watch out for falling bears? Great. Love your faces. Bye bye bye.
