When Meg thinks of a memory, it’s usually something nice. A holiday dinner, a wedding anniversary, opening gifts on Christmas Day:

Or maybe her nephews playing in the backyard:

Sometimes a memory is a wistful one, like finding an old photo of her Dad:

But did you know your memories are like a construction project, constantly tearing down and rebuilding your brain?

Meg was a tad horrified to hear that, thinking that between her rich dream life and the million thoughts that run through her head every day, it’s clear her brain is the Big Dig tunnel project working on overtime. Considering she was having cocktails with two cross dressers in her dreams the other night, she knows her brain must be on overload. There’s an explanation for that, she had been watching RuPaul’s reality show. You all know the last thing you watch at night will show up in your dreams, right?

Anyway, researchers have come up with a pill that could possibly erase negative memories and block them permanently. Jonah Lerer recently spoke on Here and Now, and talked about the article he had written for Wired magazine:

When you recall a memory from the recesses of your brain, the act of recalling it changes the memory itself. And when you remember, the brain has to use protein to form and rebuild the memory, kind of like putting spackle on a hole in the wall.

So far a drug cocktail has been tested on rats that will inhibit the proteins used to build memory, thus eliminating the memory, and the pain associated with recalling that information. Researchers feel it might be helpful for war veterans that are experiencing PTSD, or even people with severe depression and debilitating anxiety.

But you you imagine if people got a hold of the drug and used it say, recreationally? Imagine soneone saying “God, I really hate the craptastic review my boss gave me. I’m just gonna pop one of those cool memory eraser pills and forget that ever happened!” Break up with boyfriend? Zing, take a pill! Bad grade one semester? “What, did I even take that class?”

Meg can see the negative ramifications of the drug in everyday life, never mind if some craven dictator like Bashar Al Assad got his dirty hands on it.

Luckily, the drug is 5 to 10 years away from reality, but even that doesn’t seem a long time away for something that seems like it’s an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Meg does think it would be great if some memories went away, but ultimately, they are part and parcel of who we are, the people we have become, and reflect our true personality. If we never had to overcome adversity, would we even have a compass to steer us in the right direction?

Every man’s memory is his private literature. ~Aldous Huxley

And I think Huxley is right, what would the story of our lives be without memories? Would you take a pill to forget certain things?

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Do you ever utter a sentence where someone does a double take and tilts their head? Meg likes to think she’s toned down her Boston accent so no one recognizes what city she’s really from. Except when she says she has a great idear idea.

As she well knows, a regional accent can be extremely grating. Some people still think New Englander’s talk like JFK. They may have may have in her grandfather’s day, but she doesn’t hear real people like that anymore.

She does, however, hear people talk like these chicks:

Meg remembers in high school she’d hit Manning’s pharmacy for vanilla cokes, followed by a trip to the Maynard Pizza house for toasted subs. When she was older, Meg and her friends would take a beat run to the packie, where they’d pool the contents of their fringed handbags to see how many little tiny Millah Lites they could buy, because who didn’t like the handy purse size beaahs for the movie theater?

DARE (The Dictionary of Regional English) has just come out with Volume V of it’s exhaustive list of words and can tell you things like “where people might live if their favorite card games are euchre, five hundred, schafskopf, sheepshead, or sixty-three; or where Americans eat apple pandowdy, lutefisk, or rivel; or where people are from if they live in dog trots, railroad flats, salt boxes, or shotgun houses.”

Meg is going to avoid all the places people play cards, because she hates sitting around staring at a deck of cards when she could be doing something fun. That’s why this could be such a handy book for her!

OK, you Pennsylvania natives, can you tell me what any of these things are?

Lighting a barn burner near a doodle is never a good idea, whether or not there’s a mowhole nearby to use as an escape route. You might suspect a elbedritsch of trying such a thing, though. When planning a horning, try to find a way to keep people from playing hasenpfeffer or drinking ratgut. At the very least, get someone to make a kuchen and arrange for a skimmelton. No one should be snoopy about what is offered.

Meg knows for sure what all these things are in Massachusetts:

If you’re up in Gloucester for the day, maybe you can watch the fare come in and then grab a frappe afterwards. If it’s springtime and you’re down on the Cape, try to spot a pinkwink. But if you’re down there in the fall, pick up a scoop and start harvesting some cranberries. Hopefully there aren’t too many diddledees on the way. Watch your speed on the way home, so you don’t get pulled over by a statie.

She tried Montana just for kicks:

If you see a jerky headed toward you, it could be a homesteader bringing more people to help with the harvest. He built a house in a coulee, near a river stocked with flat. Last week, he hosted a pitch-in dinner, with guests from all over, including his friend the lamb licker. If he invites you over for the next one, say “yah!”

What cool words do you remember as a kid, or still use today? Meg has to admit, she still thinks a lot of things are “awesome“!

I gotta cut that one out.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Are you a prepper? Do you have your mise en place all chopped and ready to go when you cook? Is your luggage waiting by the door the night before when you are heading out for a big trip? Are your clothes neatly lined up in your closet, pressed and ready to jump into?

Meg is affirmative on all of the above; she considers herself organized and on top of her game. She loathes people that are habitually late, people that go a new city and are all like “I don’t know where to go and what to do” (how is that even possible with the internet?). She also hates people that are creepily stocked up.

She also hates people that are creepily stocked up. And there’s a name for those folks – they are called preppers.

If you head over to their website, you can get an overview of the “prepper” paths and credos, and even shop in their prep store:

They proudly claim that the instant milk has a 25 year shelf life, but Meg would like to point out that wine has a great shelf life as well. Just sayin’.

Meg saw this prepper featured over on the Today Show as well as the Daily Beast:

Did you check out the amount of SPAM that woman had on her shelf? I guarantee she’s trying to kill her family if she’s stockpiling that crap. And wouldn’t the amount of sodium in the canned soup and vegetables guarantee bloat beyond comprehension? Meg does happen to have soup in her pantry, it’s two cans of Progresso Healthy choice in case she gets so sick she can’t make her own.

This Survival Mom also takes things a step further, by scheduling regular target practice at the local shooting range with her kids:

My kids know all about gun safety, so what I did was to sit down with them and explain how important it was for them to be out of the line of fire if an armed and dangerous person is ever in or near our home. Here’s what they are to do: drop to the ground immediately and without question. To rehearse this, on occasion I’ll yell, “Kids! Drop to the floor!” or just, “Kids! Drop!” Then, I check to make sure that wherever they are, they’ve dropped! I know, I know. It might sound crazy, but what’s crazier?

Meg is trying to picture screaming at her husband to drop to the ground while she wields a can of hairspray, which she personally thinks is one of the most dangerous weapons ever. And she’s not sure what natural disaster might occur in these parts, but this is the only thing Meg stockpiles when they are on sale:

She’s guaranteed to have San Marzano tomatoes to wield as both a weapon and nourishment, should the sky fall down.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Despite being married 25 years, Meg is not a fan of Valentine’s Day. It’s overblown, overly dramatic and a complete ripoff. She usually cooks a nice dinner and then the couple exchanges a cute card. Occasionally a nice bouquet of flowers might show up, but all Meg needs is a bouquet of cheerful tulips. Seriously, that will do the trick for her:

See? Doesn’t that brighten your day?

Meg was going over some lists of things that women allegedly might like for Valentine’s Day, and she’d like to share of these ideas with you:

Number 1.

Umm, no. The only word I can picture related to this activity is STOP. The next would be BLEACH, for all the ground in chocoolate you’d be removing from your nice Egyptian Cotton sheets.

Number 2:

Cook her a special meal!

Unless you are a trained chef, this would not be a great option. Meg’s husband, for the record, knows his way around a gas grill, but that’s it.

Number 3:

Serve her breakfast in bed!

See number 1 for associated issues with this.

Number 4:

Take her shopping.

Sweet Baby Jesus of Bethlehem, NO! Meg is imagining a nice trip to Nordstrom’s where she browses the SALE racks, then wanders over to the shoe department. She them meanders over to cosmetics and tries a bunch of lip glosses, creams and eye pencils. She spritzes on a fresh new scent, and then she ends up trying on some discounted high end costume jewelry. She purchases a great necklace, and as a bonus, she bops over to the David Yurman counter where the nice lady lets her try on rings and bracelets. She ends her trip at Blue Stove on the second floor, with a nice glass of wine and some grilled sea bass.

Can you picture any husband in their right mind interfering with this afternoon?

Number 5:

Get her name tattooed on your ___.

We all know how that worked out for Angelina Jolie. Does anyone know what Billy Bob Forever looks like now?

For the record, Meg and her husband are attending a hockey game, in which she”ll be sitting in prime club seats, with a dedicated waitperson bringing her vodka and sodas. She’ll cheer, she’ll high five, and exit the Boston Garden a winner.

And that’s all the romance a guy needs, a wife who attends a sports event and thinks it’s romantic.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Even though we haven’t had a “winter” here, it’s still the season for winter blues. February is so blah and boring and grey. So far the highlight of Meg’s month was buying a Groupon for window washing. Actually, she is pretty happy that someone is going to wash all 30 something of her screens and windows for $150.00 bucks, because after slaving for weeks at that task last summer, she was just about fed up.

The Grammy’s are this Sunday and Adele may show up singing her angst ridden hit “Someone Like You“:

Oh Lord. Apparently this song has achieved tearjerker status throughout the nation. The good news is if you love this song, you are a nostalgic, sentimental daydreamer. If you hate it, you are shallow and pragmatic. Recently, a London producer commissioned a survey of the saddest songs of all time and these were amongst the top ones”

Everybody Hurts – REM (love!)
The Living Years – Mike and the Mechanics (love!)
Seasons in the Sun – Terry Jacks (makes Meg want to scratch her eyes out)
Without You – Harry Nilsson (love!)

Meg would personally like to add Sarah McLaughlin’s “I Will Remember You”, which makes her cry every time she hears it. Call her a daydreamer, for sure.

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Last night, Meg watched an entire episode of the Bachelor. Usually she wanders of to Hulu for some clips, but she needed to see what this piece of work Courtney was all about. Here are some of the lowlights from the past several weeks:

So last night Meg watched ABC humiliate 2 amicable women by sending them out on a salsa lesson date with Bachelor Ben, or as she likes to call him, Bachelor Jeff Spicoli. Each of them shook their booty in front of Jeff, while the other one stood violently twirling her hair. One was left with a rose, and the other one stomped off crying. Seriously girls, you should be happy taking that ride in the limo with a cocktail, the one where you should be breathing a sigh of relief.

I’m surprised someone hasn’t smacked Courtney down yet, but I imagine her soon to be washed up modeling career will take of that all my itself. In the meantime ladies of America, have some dignity, OK? Stop it.

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Lastly, Meg is in complete agreement about this sign:

Also, whoever invented Comic Sans should be punished. Severely.

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Meg hope you are winging your way toward spring and clean windows like she is.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

As most of you know, Meg does NOT live on the frontier, but in a suburb right outside of Boston. Yesterday, she did have a rather close call in her little hamlet that made her know for sure she was neither Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman nor Barbara Stanwyck on the Big Valley (look that one up, kids. I need to keep you on your toes with old cultural references).

Yesterday the family was walking Jack in the Town Forest, and SOMEONE decided it would be much more interesting to take
the Boy Scout trails in the woods because they were “more adventurous”. Meg likes the traditional wide trails herself, as you don’t have to fields streams and climb over trees. Nonetheless, Meg agreed to hike along the ridge of the yellow trail.

The family trooped along with Jack off-leash as he bounced and leaped over trees; looking back every once in awhile for some approval and a little smile:

(typical Jack attitude in the woods)

Suddenly, Jack’s amazing tracking ability kicked in, and he took off like a jet, leaving his 2 masters in the middle of the woods whistling for him like a couple of fools. Anyone pity the fools?

After about 10 minutes the fools agreed to split up and each take a direction in hopes their little dog would listen and come running. Soon Meg spied something moving in the distance, and thought the objects looked rather LARGE. As the objects came running toward her and became GINORMOUS, she realized they were a pair of whitetailed bucks, thundering toward her.

All of her camping expertise and backwoods experience kicked in (and that would be NONE people, Meg doesn’t camp anywhere except at a W or a Westin) and she hugged an oak tree for dear life, whereupon the deer sprinted within 10 feet of her mighty oak hideout. She saw the sharp hooves and sinewy hindquarters up close and way too personally, and her heart friggin raced. Raced, she tells you!

Out came trotting Jack, COVERED from head to toe in mud. In fact, he looked like an exact replica of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, complete with pirate boots and dreadlocks.

Meg bravely grabbed his collar and shouted for the person who had the leash, and everyone safely made their way to the nearest watering hole to get Jack to clean off.

You think that dog would step a paw over that one inch of ice on the shore? No. The family went back home, where they managed to turn their garage utility sink into an impromptu grooming salon. Little Jack rested in his crate for the remainder of the day, all proud he chased deer, and a lot peeved he had to get a bath.

Meg thinks she’ll just walk him around the block next weekend.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

The Lounge wishes you all Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Happy Hanukkah and a fruitful Solstice!

And I finally got to send a card with my kid on the front of it!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

You know those radio stations that start playing music on Thanksgiving week? The ones that play Suzy Snowflake and Dominic the Donkey? Don’t get me started on Madonna’s version of Santa Baby; the one where if Eartha Kitt weren’t already dead she rake her nails down Madonna’s cheek for destroying her classic song?

Yes, those stations torture me, which is why we are going to watch videos today. Pay attention class!

Meg had NO idea the Royal Navy was so cheeky. Yeah, baby!

Speaking of British humor, Mr. Bean is pretty creative with a interactive Nativity:

In an ode to her Boston roots, Meg would like to give you The Real Housewives of South Boston, doing their Yankee Swap:

She is WICKED HAHHHD PRESSED not to ask for that Tom Brady crucifix. Especially since her Tommy is going up against the Zadge’s Tim Tebow this weekend. Meg hopes the theme from the Departed isn’t playing when her Pats visit Denver!

Let’s end with Jon Stewart, who takes a trip back to 1789 to see how the colonial fathers celebrated Christmas:

This weekend, relax, decompress, and throw a little eggnog back. You deserve it, people!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

The stakes for Jeopardy Blog Potpourri could not be higher this week! The house is finally festooned for Christmas, thanks to Meg’s husband, who took last Friday off from work. He set the tree up, dragged boxes out of storage, and created a whole new category called Helpful Husbands for $1000. His assistance was actually worth a cool million, and it showed as she started lighting things up:

This room is the sunroom, aka Meg’s office, and she tries to string as many white lights as she can to create an aura of peace every evening. Sometimes at the end of a long day, Meg dreads shutting off all the peace she has created, so she bought these:

Meet her new best friend, the remote control! Now Meg has an entire command center at her fingertips, which magically controls not only the outside lights, but the inside as well, so she doesn’t have to shlep these stairs every night:

Even Jack gave a paws up on all the decorating, giving his seal of approval:

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In the best $20 the family has spent this year, they won a raffle and got rinkside seats to Saturday’s Boston Bruins game:

Meg will vouch 100 percent that hockey players are extremely rugged and ultra cute close up, making the game experience even more pleasant. The team played the Toronto Maple Leafs, and many of our Canadian friends to the North were in town for the game. Meg loves how the crowd gauged the Toronto fans; it was a more genteel rivalry than say, the Montreal-Beantown where you have the usual dust-up’s and f-bombs. The worst insult she heard was between face-offs when shear a Boston fan shouted “Nickelback is the WORST Canadian band ever“! Meg smiled and the crowd laughed, although she would beg to differ, she thinks that title belongs to the band Rush.

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Meg has a new hobby at the end of each day, it’s called recycling:

She cannot believe the outlandish amount of paper that comes her way each day, and she has even gotten on one of those direct mail lists to CEASE and DESIST with all this crap. Anyone else dealing with this?

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Meg is sort of sorry Herman (my ass is toast) Cain is bowing out of the Presidential race; he was an endless source of amusement for the past several months. She was especially baffled at Herman’s reluctance to go home to Mrs. Cain and do come ‘splainin about the his mystery friend.

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Lastly, Meg keeps hearing gasps of shock about the whole Kardashian fake wedding debacle. Why anyone is surprised Kim did not really want to be married to a 26 year old basketball player is beyond me. She especially did not think Kim was ever going to set foot in Minnesota (no offense to the good people of the state, except of those who elected Michelle Bachmann), but I always thought the real wedding nuttiness belonged to these two:

Meg never trusts a man that sports multi-carat diamond earrings in BOTH ears, or a woman who wraps herself like she’s going to pop out of a birthday cake.

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Meg thinks the whole Kardashian clan should celebrate Christmas in Vegas, that way what happens there can stay there, God willing.

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.

Main Entry: primer
Part of Speech: noun

…is a first textbook for teaching of reading, such as an alphabet book or basal reader. The word also is used more broadly to refer to any book that presents the most basic elements of a subject.

The other day Meg wrote a cheerful post about some cool holiday things you can buy for yourself your friends and family. She isn’t especially enthralled with shopping, but she like to express appreciation for her loved ones with something nice.

The other thing Meg likes to do at this time of year is go out of her way to be thankful to those serving customers, the public at large, and those that have to put up with the assholes from the rich town next door. Today she was at the garden center and a super nice woman helped her out with something; it wasn’t even her section. But Meg told her she was incredibly nice, an awesome employee, and that Meg truly appreciated her help. I mean, how hard is that?

Meg sees people stomping around when they can’t get the attention of those poor customer service people, and when they snap their fingers, Meg PRAYS that the employee tacks on bonus time to ring up the purchase or make sure their wait is long and painful. Isn’t snapping is for beatniks with bongo drums?

The other night Meg and her husband were trying to dine is peace at their favorite Chinese restaurant, the one there the staff hugs them and gives them a great table in the corner. But that table was not available, and they had to sit in another corner, one that was cursed. Apparently, it’s a new thing to let your kids run circles with knives and forks and scream at the top of his lungs. And it’s even more chic when the parents bring no activities or toys for said heathen to play with.

So let’s replay what happened:

Parents finish dinner (blessedly) and get up to leave. BUT NOT BEFORE STOPPING TO TALK TO MEG.

Incensed Mother: I saw you looking at my child! You should be ashamed!

Me: Umm, I couldn’t help but notice I wasn’t the only person being disturbed.

Incensed Father: You should just have another drink!

Me: Actually, I’m going to now that I can relax. Have a nice Thanksgiving, OK?

Meg has dined out with many children in her day, none that were ill behaved like that. And if they did, they were escorted to the lobby for a time out so as not to disturb other diners. No matter how much it inconvenienced the parent. Sigh.

Lastly, Meg is very good about letting people go when road conditions dictate common sense, and it means avoiding cluster fu**. She likes to wave people along and ensure a good flow of traffic and karma. Another new rule Meg has noticed is no one waves thank you in return. She doesn’t expect a full on Kate Middleton princess wave, just a friendly thanks. It must be hard for those Escalade drivers to lift their bejeweled hands from the steering wheel!

None of this will stop Meg from her position of politeness and dignity; it will drive her however, to have a cocktail an hour or two earlier than scheduled.

And the moral of Meg’s parable today, is something she often says to her little dog Jack. BE NICE!

©2012 The Members Lounge. All Rights Reserved.