The Lisa Life

Bloody Mary Blogging

I am enjoying a Bloody Mary right now.  You know what the secret to an outstanding Bloody Mary is?  Steak sauce and freshly ground pepper. 

Today is the traditional Sunday dinner with the in-laws.  We're having stuffed shells and although my shells are ready, I do need to make the gravy.  We're also having the mandarin orange/Gorgonzola cheese salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing that I make all the time and Pillsbury French Loaf.  I love that Pillsbury loaf, freshly baked bread hot from the oven.  All you have to do is bust open the can.

I'm so boring and predictable sometimes.

In other news, the local prosecutor's office (our local PA is an asshat, by the way) is holding a press conference tomorrow regarding Jessica Fear's murder.  I hope this means that an arrest is close.  I have my theories on this, we'll see how those tie in to what the authorities have to say.

I'm reading Ann Rule's Green River Running Red right now and I can only read a few pages at a time because it is so disturbing.  I generally enjoy Ms. Rule's books overall, she's had a couple dogs in the pack but considering how prolific she is, she's a very good writer.  Her care in portraying the victims of the Green River Killer is incredible.  Yes, they were prostitutes but they were also living breathing humans whose lives had taken bad turns.  And so young, oh my, all so very young.  They were never given an opportunity to turn their lives around.  Gary Ridgeway is a monster.

My friend Ellen drunk dialed me on New Year's Eve this year (a long tradition of ours that we missed for a while) and reminded me that I'm turning 40 this year.  I keep thinking of this lately and I really like what Teri Hatcher said, about 40 being the new 30.  I remember being in my 20s and thinking 40 was like, ancient and people that age only listened to the Oldies and excitement for them was reviewing their stock portfolio while sipping decaf.

Now, with some perspective, I know so many wonderful accomplished women who've hit that milestone in  stride and it doesn't seem old to me at all.  Besides, I've already gotten past the nasty menopause thing so I won't even have to deal with that.

One of the reasons I am enjoying The Sopranos?  Nearly all of the female characters look like real women.  Yeah, Carmella has a big butt.  Dr. Melfi has thick legs.  Janice is Rubenesque.  They look like real people, not Hollywood's definition of what a woman should look like.  Not everyone should be a size two, you know.

I think I need another Bloody Mary.

The Tragic Ending Of The Ricky Holland Case

I've been following the Ricky Holland disappearance since the beginning.  It interested me not only because he lived not too far from me but from the adoption aspect as well.  I was puzzled that his case did not receive the national attention many missing child cases do.  America's Most Wanted did a segment and Nancy Grace featured him during her show, Court TV had him featured on their missing children section, but that was pretty much it for national exposure.

I was suspicious about his parents from the beginning.  Ricky had some serious emotional problems and would have been a very difficult child to parent.  To successfully parent him would have taken years of family therapy and unswerving commitment.  Generally speaking, the adoptive parents for children with these problems have special training to learn how to effectively deal with these problems.

I planned on doing a long post about Ricky, but Trish has voiced my own feelings so well already.  Read about it here along with updates.  She's done a great job following this case.

The only other thing on my mind is how on earth the Hollands could have passed a home study and why another adoption was finalized while Ricky was still missing.  I hope someone along the food chain involved in this adoption takes some responsibility.

If My Blog Were A Living Thing, We'd Be Calling Social Services Or At Least The Animal Control People

So I haven't blogged in about two weeks.  That's a sin, right? 

Maybe I just decided to take a break and I didn't announce it with trumpets and fanfare and a big entry announcing that and all my angst regarding such.

Or you know, it could have been that I just was all caught up in watching The Sopranos on DVD.

I've read a lot a books as well.

Lots of scarves have been knitted.

Who needs a scarf?  I'm running out of people I can send them to.

In other news, work is going well.  I love my job.  I want to kick the last bookkeeper's ass because she did a lot of stupid shit but I like the people I work with very much, we sell great product and I'm treated like an equal.  No one has thrown a Nextel phone at me or told me I'm a stupid idiot.  So far.

Dear and Gentle readers, I've also got a lot in store for you.  Grosse Pointe boaters mystery, Ricky Holland.

I've been gone and hopefully not forgotten.

My Favorite Soldier

Sam, my other husband and brother and my favorite soldier, is in Virginia for now and will be there until February. 

I will be sending at least one care package and probably several cards. 

I hate this war and disagree with it on so many levels, but I support our troops, who are doing their jobs and are truly men and women of honor who have my respect.

If you'd like to send a card or care package to my personal favorite soldier, email me and I'll provide Sam's address.

And yes, he will be tickled and touched.

I love my favorite soldier very much.

P.S. Sam called me this afternoon to ask cooking advice about a pork loin roast. It was cute.

Masquerade

Masquerade, by Lowell Cauffiel.

Lowell Cauffiel is (or was, not sure if he is still alive) a reporter for the Detroit News who covered this bizarre and twisted case and subsequently wrote this excellent book detailing the characters and background concerning the murder of Dr. W. Alan Canty, Jr.

Dr. Canty was a well-known psychologist in Detroit, practicing in the prestigious Fisher Building downtown.  He was the only child of Alan Canty, Sr., who retired as the executive director of the Detroit Recorder's Court Psychiatric Clinic, although he had never finished college. Canty Sr.'s research ran the gamut from repeat traffic offenders and the pathology behind them to sexual deviates.   His mother was Gladys Canty, a former Detroit school board member who had served twice as president during her 14 year career. 

Dr. Canty had done very well financially with his practice, much better than his father ever had in working for the courts.  He and his much younger and quite beautiful wife Jan lived in a Tudor in prestigious Grosse Pointe on Windmill Drive.  Although Dr. Canty was a bit eccentric (he was a total slob as far as dressing, rarely watched television and dismissed celebrities yet couldn't wait every week for his People magazine to arrive), he appeared to live a settled, structured, somewhat OCD lifestyle.

None of Dr. Canty's friends or colleagues could have guessed he was leading a second life, one that took him to Detroit's most ravaged neighborhood, the Cass Corridor.

The Cass Corridor in Detroit during the mid-80s was riddled with drug addicts, prostitutes and crime of every imaginable type.  It was where you landed when you had absolutely hit rock bottom in your addiction.  The whores working the Cass were the ones who couldn't pass muster during the day, so deep were the ravages of their addictions.  Heroin was the drug of choice, called "mixed jive" in the neighborhood, since it was stepped on so much, the percentage of heroin was in question.

It was here that Dr. Canty met Dawn Marie Spens, an 18 year old fresh faced addict who hailed from Harper Woods, a nice middle-class working class suburb.

Dawn had a troubled childhood with an alcoholic often absent father who eventually left the family.  She started drinking and smoking pot in middle school and by her junior year of high school, she peeled completely out of the squadron and left home to live with her abusive, petty criminal and full-blown drug addict boyfriend Don in a Cass Corridor apartment.  At that point, Dawn did not ride the needle, but after seeing Don repeatedly shoot up and his never-ending quest for more, she decided to see what the fuss was all about.

Eventually, she left Don to hook up with John "Lucky"  Fry, a long time felon and addict who was old enough to be her father. 

Dr. Canty approached Dawn for a "date" and turned into her sugar daddy.  She rarely had sex with him, but he visited every day expect Sundays at lunchtime for an hour and paid generously for her time.  She and Lucky scammed the good doctor out of unknown amounts of money with cons such as Dawn needing a new car, paying Lucky off to go away so Dr. Canty could have her to himself and even paying for them to move out of the squalid apartment building they lived into to a run-down bungalow, which Dawn furnished on the basis of Dr. Canty's credit.

Dr. Canty, however, was playing something of his own game with them.  He presented himself as an MD and used a different name. He never mentioned his wife or his practice, preferring that the pimp and his whore think he practiced emergency medicine in one of the large Detroit trauma hospitals.  Indeed, when Dawn suffered a terrible abscess from her drug addiction, he paved the way for an easy admittance to a hospital where in true co-dependent fashion, Dr. Canty provided street drugs for Dawn to inject into her IV line.

When Lucky was getting the sense that their cash cow and only source of income was backing away, he took a gamble. I won't give away the whole story, but Dr. Canty ended up dead and dismembered 250 miles away from Detroit and everyone who knew him was shocked by his sordid second life. 

An excellent read and so much better than fiction because really, you can't make this kind of shit up.

New Year's Eve

We hosted our friend and my other husband Sam for New Year's Eve, which is turning into something of a tradition.  We made big beefy steaks, baked potatoes and spinach souffle and watched DVDs until the wee hours. 

Some of our viewing choices (a.k.a. what you rent when you wait too long to go to Hollywood Video):

Drugstore Cowboy starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch and an incredibly young and hot Heather Graham.  Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch star as Bob and Diane, childhood sweethearts who are addicted to prescription drugs and rob drugstores to feed their cravings.  William S. Burroughs makes a cameo appearance as a de-frocked drug addicted Catholic priest.  Although there aren't any real surprises or plot twists, it's a very good movie.  It takes place in the 70s and the costumes and sets are spot-on to the time period, right down to Diane's frosted white painted fingernails and Bob's plaid polyester sans-a-belt pants and ban-lon shrits.

Almost Famous starring Kate Hudson.  It's a good thing Kate Hudson is cute because she's not the greatest actress.  A movie based on Cameron Crowe's early rock journalist career.  Amusing movie, cute and predictable.  Wonderful job by Frances McDormand.

Rescue Me, The First Season, Episodes One Through Five.  A great series starring Dennis Leary.  Leary plays Tommy, a NYC fireman post 9/11.  A very human story laced with humor and darkness and very believable.

Shaun Of The Dead, a British zombie flick.  A favorite of Martin and Sam, I knit and read through it, having seen it several times.  One thing you can say about British actors, they don't overdo the tanning and tooth-whitening and capping.