...And Don't Call Me Shirley!

Well, the Opto-Mom is sad….very sad. Actor Leslie Nielsen has died {sniff, sniff}.

I’m not ashamed to say that I absolutely adore goofy comedies. Nielsen played Dr. Rumack onboard a near-fated flight in “Airplane!” and the hapless Detective Frank Drebin in the “Naked Gun” movies. If you haven’t seen these movies, then you are seriously missing out on some insane silliness that will keep you in stitches.


Let’s just use this post to review and enjoy some of the choice lines from these two Nielsen characters. In other words, I’m mailing it in today.


Rumack: You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital.
Elaine: A hospital? What is it?
Rumack: It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now.


Rumack: Can you fly this plane, and land it?
Ted Striker: Surely you can't be serious.
Rumack: I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.  [my favorite!]


Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur: I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.


Rumack: What was it we had for dinner tonight?
Elaine: Well, we had a choice of steak or fish.
Rumack: Yes, yes, I remember, I had lasagna.


Frank: That's the red-light district. I wonder why Savage is hanging around down there.
Ed: Sex, Frank?
Frank: Uh, no, not right now, Ed. We’ve got work to do.


Hapsburg: I don't recall your name on the guest list.
Frank: That's OK. I sometimes go by my maiden name.


Frank (on his love, Jane): But there she was, just like I remembered her. That delicately beautiful face, and a body that could melt a cheese sandwich from across the room. And breasts that seemed to say, “Hey, look at me!” She was the kind of woman that made you want to drop to your knees and thank God you were a man. Yeahhhhh. She reminded me of my mother all right, no doubt about it.


Dr. Meinheimer: Lieutenant, I really do hope you find the people responsible.
Frank: Well, I’m sorry I can’t be more optimistic, doctor, but we have a long road ahead of us. Like having sex, it’s a painstaking, arduous task that seems to go on and on forever, and just when you think things are going your way… nothing happens.


Hapsburg: You do speak French, don’t you?
Frank: Unfortunately no, but I do kiss that way.


Frank (on the environment): I want a world where Frank Junior, and all the Frank Juniors, can sit under a shade tree, breathe the air, swim in the ocean, and go into a 7-11 without an interpreter.


Frank: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.
Jane: Goodyear?
Frank: No, the worst.


Thanks for indulging me today. Surely this has brought a smile to your face.

 I know, I know...stop calling you Shirley!

The Mommy Diaries - My Mom Jumped Off a Bridge!

My darlings, I have introduced you to a few members of my family, including my dad and my grandfather. As you can tell from these stories, I have quite an eccentric family.

My mom, Susan, was no different, but I haven’t really talked about her because she passed away at the young age of 46 due to a stroke.  It totally freakin' sucks every day of my life, but she was so funny and left me with so many great memories, I thought I would share her with you guys.  I’ve decided to introduce you to the adventures of Susan through a little segment I call “The Mommy Diaries.”


Now don’t worry, I’m not going to be all sappy and mopey. I shall continue to blog with my usual semi-amusement and attempted hilarity.


So, ONWARD….


Let’s start our story with a little bit of background. My mom (Susan) was raised with her sister Julia and her brother Jimmy. When my mom was 12, her mother got re-married to a man with 2 kids, Jan and Brad. Here are the kids’ ages when the couple got married:
Susan 12
Jan 13
Julia 14
Brad 15
Jimmy 16

Yeah, it was like the Brady Bunch, but these people actually had hormones, and I‘m pretty sure they never said anyone was “absolutely dreamy.”


With five teenagers in the house, you know it’s got to be wild, but my mom and Jan (the two youngest) were the ones who gave my grandmother the most trouble. For some reason, they always did the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do.

Now, we’ve got a big bayou that runs through our little town.  Back in the 60’s this bayou flooded, and the result was lots of contaminated water.  Of course, you had little urchins that insisted on jumping into these sewage-filled waters because the water level was high enough that they could jump off the bridge without suffering a broken neck. 

My grandma worked at the hospital and had seen lots of illnesses (but no broken necks!) from the contaminated water, so she warned all of her kids, but especially the adventurous Jan and Susan, NOT to jump into that nasty ass water.


Yeah, you can see it coming, can’t you?


The next week, my grandma went to Susan and Jan and asked them if they had been jumping off of the bridge. “Of course not,” they replied with big innocent eyes.


I think this is the look they were going for:

Who, me?

Then my grandmother pulls out the town newspaper, and VOILA! Guess whose picture was on the front page in MID-FUCKING-AIR jumping into the crusty bayou water? If I have to tell you the answer, you apparently haven’t been paying attention.


Front page news in my town.

Watch for more "The Mommy Diaries" segments, including when my mom made a kid pretend to smoke cigarettes and when she stuck her foot in her mouth with a royal flair!

Monday Madness

Link up at: http://thedailydribbles.blogspot.com/

1. Who is your "what-if" person?
Hmmmmmm. I would have to say that it's my husband. He's always been my "what if" guy! I know, that's just sweet as saccharine! Most of the others have been in prison, so I certainly don't want to think "what if" about them. {shivers} They are more like "as if."

2. What is your nickname?
My daddy has always called me SheliaGirl, though I've also been known as Shaquilla.

3. If you could choose how you died, how would you like to die?
Very, very quickly! I'm totally not into the whole long-illness-where-you-suffer-for-years-and-then-die thing. Maybe it would be cool to die on a dance floor while grooving to some awesome tunes...as long as someone removes my body before I get trampled. I wanna look good at my funeral!

4. If you could have named yourself, which name would you have picked?
As a kid I wanted to be named Jamie. I just loved that name, and all of my dolls were named Jamie. However, now that I'm older, I think I would like something with a little more meaning. Perhaps Crescendo would be nice. It seems to have a good ring to it, and it means to get louder and more powerful as you go on. But then I would have to change my nicknames.....

5. Who were you named after or for what reason did your parents choose your name?
Ummmm, I was supposed to be named Stephanie, but my mom, in a birthing stupor, decided that she wanted to name me after her childhood dance teacher. So I am Shelia Kaye. There's no accounting for what women in labor are thinking...don't even try!