I Never Promised You A Rose Garden But I Did Promise You An Extra Column
by Nicole Freire

Remember? I was focused on my head injury (now an official concussion, because I had to have a CT scan of my head, you know, in case my brain was bleeding, and now I have painkillers for my ?post-concussive headaches') and I was all, "Oh, I can't write too much today" or "Oh, this article is late" or "Oh, I had coffee and think I'm having a stroke and my forehead is all sweaty". You know, stuff like that.

I've been saving up topics all week for you readers, writing columns in my head (again with the head, how many times can I mention it?) as I was driving or lying in my bed or watching television, and I had so many things stocked up that they have to be sort of parceled out to you in small paragraphs.

There is no overarching theme here, just slices of my brain (uh, I meant thoughts).

So, here we go.

Balloons Make Me Sad And Nervous

We're all used to seeing bunches of balloons at car dealerships, which is their way of trying to seem less evil. That's my theory. Because you only go into a car dealership for one reason - to buy a car. And you're there because you HAVE to buy a car, and you're girded for it being unpleasant and taking all day long and driving multiple cars to test them out, and being assaulted by salesmen, and told that your trade-in car is worth $1500 TOPS, because the sales manager drove it around the block and decided that the engine was shot, or the brakes were bad, or some other excuse. Then you buy your darn car and go home and sell your old car on Craigslist for $4500, and you think to yourself, HAH, good thing I wasn't tricked by the sales manager.

Anyway.

Yesterday I was driving by the carwash that I drive by every single day, and they had a bunch of colorful balloons decorating the outside, and it made me feel sad. You know the carwash isn't going to try and trick you into buying a car with leather seats when you just wanted the fabric kind, they're just saying, "Hey, look at our balloons, they're pretty and colorful and maybe you'd like a carwash today?" Which made me feel sad, because if I need a carwash, I'll get a carwash.

Just seeing balloons won't make me get a carwash, it just makes me feel a little sad, like the employees were sitting around thinking to themselves, "Man, the economy is bad and water is expensive and people just don't seem to be getting their cars washed like they used to. What should we do?" And then someone says, "Hey, I know! Let's get a bunch of balloons!" I guess what I'm saying is that balloons are not a magical sales technique.

And why do they make me nervous? This is the fault of my mother, who once heard that a child choked to death on a balloon. So balloons always made me nervous as a child, as if they were planning on jumping into my mouth and then choking me to death.

So when I had children, my mother would always say, "Don't let them play with balloons! Because they can choke on them!" But of course kids love balloons and they give them out at grocery stores and other places and people offer them innocently, "Here small child! Have a cheerful balloon!" and the kids loved them and I would spend hours monitoring the damn balloon until the kids went to bed and then I would secretly take them outside and pop them.

Then one day I went to visit my parents, and there was a shiny Mylar balloon tied to one of the kitchen chairs and I was all, "What's with the balloon?" and my mom says to me, "Oh, the cat likes to play with it and you can just take the balloon back to the store when it gets low on air and they'll fill it up for free!"

Children + Balloons = Certain Death
Cats + Balloons = Playful cheap cat toy

Battlestar Galactica Is Ending

As a rule I don't get involved with television shows. They're always at the mercy of greedy television executives and advertisers and what the barometric pressure is or some other way of disappointing me. Also, if they're any good, well then, you know it's going to be canceled. It broke my heart when they canceled, "Sports Night", which was years ago and I'm still mad about it. Then they canceled this great creepy show called, "Threshold", which was very X-Files-ish and it had Carla Gugino in it and had weird space/alien storylines and I loved it and so naturally it got canceled almost immediately.

I'm cautious. But I'd heard and read that "Battlestar Galactica" was a great series and I'll watch anything that takes place in space or on a spaceship, but I was not going to get involved. Then I heard that the series was going to be ending, really ending, not just messing with people's minds like "Lost", and so I decided to start dating again. I meant watching again, but you knew what I meant, right?

This involved watching 5 seasons in only a few months, and my love was instant and deep. But we were working with a deadline at Chez Freire, so it was BSG all the time. I had to change my Netflix account just to make sure there were always at least 4 or 5 DVD's lying around at any given time, and my husband and I would hide in the bedroom late into the evening watching them on the laptop because, while BSG is fantastic, it is not for children.

And now there are only 4, count ?em FOUR, episodes left and I'm feeling bereft and have already started grieving. It's ending, and I'm sad and pretty sure they're not going to tie up all the storylines perfectly.

So who is going to want to talk about it with me when it's done? I can't gossip anymore about how lame Lee Adama can be sometimes, or how much I love Starbuck, even though she's clearly an alcoholic, and don't you think that they should train someone else to be a doctor besides Doc Caudle? I mean, he's the only doctor in the entire fleet, and since he smokes like a chimney - even in the operating room - it's clear he'll die of lung cancer someday and then the fleet is going to be all "Man, we should have trained some other people to be doctors." But it will be TOO LATE.

And Ellen Tigh is the fifth Cylon? It's ridiculous, that particular revelation. Where is President Roslin getting her wigs if the rest of fleet is going hungry and are forced to eat algae? And don't you all think that the President and Adama Sr. should just go ahead and get married? They love each other and there are only four episodes left, so make me happy. Also, Gaeta? Who saw that coming? Not me.

What will I have left? And don't suggest that I start watching "Stargate" on SciFi, because it looks lame, and the only reason the movie was barely watchable was that James Spader was in it.

On the bright side, new episodes of "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" are coming in April. Oh Vincent D'Onofrio, I have missed you so much.

Let Me Recommend Something Great

I discovered this podcast a few months ago, and hands down, it is the funniest thing I have ever listened to. I get all tetchy when they go longer than a week without posting a new podcast and I have recommend this podcast to many people and I get mad if they don't like it. Because if you like these guys as much as I do, then you totally get me on a deep and very personal level.

They are all over my wavelength of what I think is funny, and it's difficult to listen to at work on my Ipod, because they make me laugh so much and I have to sort of do this fake coughing fit so my coworkers won't look at me.

It's three techy types up in the Bay Area, and they met on Twitter, and they just sit around and talk and crack me up. It's definitely NSFW, and not for children, and if you are offended by anything they say, well then, it is your problem. I heart them. I suggest starting with their oldest podcasts so you can get a good feel for them. "Awkward Restaurant" is one of my favorites, but it's kind of like saying, "Oh, that piece of See's Candy is my favorite." When you know that I could eat every single piece of See's Candy on display, and happily, except for the ones with walnuts because I am allergic and who wants to die in a candy store? Not me.

youlooknicetoday.com

I hope you like them as much as I do.

There are a few other topics I wanted to cover, but I think we've gone over enough of my thought processes for one day. In case you were wondering, here are some other things I still want to share with you.

Three-quarter Length Sleeves And Why They Make Me Crazy

A Website Idea I Have That Might Be Great But Would Probably Be Work

Have a wonderful weekend, you crazy Edhatians.

# # # #

Nicole Freire is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara.