Bras can be wholly annoying, constricting and even gauche – but one also possibly saved a Detroit woman’s life.
The 57-year-old lady heard a neighbor’s burglar alarm and went to the window to see what was going on, reported Metro newspaper. One of the burglars fired a shot that shattered her window and made a beeline right for the lady’s chest – instead of blasting into her ribcage, however, the bullet was deflected by her bra’s underwire.
A few questions on this one – what brand of bra was that and where can I buy one? But the even bigger question: why do people go to the window when they hear mayhem going down? Gunshot! Fire engines! Scary noises!! Let’s go stick our head outside to see what’s happening.
Speaking of scary stuff: Clowns are especially terrifying, and their shoes equally horrific. One 40-year-old Russian clown was banned from wearing the things, the Daily Mail reported, and not just because the clown shoes were hideous. They were downright dangerous.
They made this particular Moscow State Circus clown tumble down 10 feet off a highwire during a performance in Liverpool.
The guy’s fall broke a bone in his foot and the circus health and safety advisers said the shoes had to go because they were unsafe.
Maybe next they can ban those bulbous red clown noses or the frightfully hairy clown wigs.
This Tales from the Freak Show was originally webcast on Rynski's Shattered Reality on Party934.com
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See more fun and funky stuff at www.ryngargulinski.com
Showing posts with label detroit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label detroit. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Summer Vacation 2007: Michigan to New York and back again
After recovering from an airplane respiratory infection, trying to recover from the too much money I spent and welcoming my dog back from doggie camp while I was away, I've finally posted a montage of my trip to Michigan and New York City. Essays and pictures apear below...enjoy!
Things I Learned on Summer Vacay at the Airport
By Ryn Gargulinski
At Tucson International Airport:
Do NOT book a 2 p.m. flight out of Tucson during the summer. Mid-afternoon is prime monsoon zone, especially on a Saturday with a crowded airport. Your options will be to wait it out, missing any connecting flight and becoming stranded at whatever city the next flight dumps you in, or to go back home and try again the following day at 7 a.m. There’s nothing like a Sunday 5 a.m. drive to the Tucson airport. It was quite pleasant, actually. The only time driving 10 miles or so in Tucson took less than an hour.
At New York’s LaGuardia Airport:
Do NOT fly out of this mess. Although I’ve always touted LaGuardia above Kennedy or Newark, I now don’t know why. When they say to arrive two hours before your flight, they are definitely not kidding. That’s exactly how long it took to wait in the snaking lines that had no real direction, check in a single bag (which you have to haul over to the x-ray machine yourself) and then stand for 45 minutes with your shoes off on cold airport floor while the man in front of you, who came clad in brass belt buckle, large spurred cowboy boots and a 10-gallon supply of metal jewelry, removes all things that make the metal detector beep. A plus at LaGuardia, however, was watching the really angry German man in a San Juan T-shirt argue with the airline workers about bringing 22 carry-ons on board.
At Detroit Metro Airport:
While most of it’s new, gleaming and sprawling, there’s a dinky little downstairs area that looked like it was constructed in 1953. You first have to find the stairwell to the bowels of the building, where you will also find security offices and big signs that say DO NOT ENTER and EXPLOSIVES INSIDE. Instead of the snaking enclosed walkway from the terminal into the plane, you will have a set of rickety stairs they wheel around to tiny aircraft. That’s where planes to New York fly out of.
On Airplanes in General:
The seats got smaller, the delays got longer and they no longer serve free, 9,000-calorie meals. Many of the seats pockets are missing barf bags, something I know since I use them as drawing paper. And unless you’ve bulked up on Airborne, Echinacea, vitamin C and other substances to make your immune system as impenetrable as armor, you’re going to get sick. Recycled air, jet fuel fumes and sitting for hours next to someone hacking up phlegm tends to do that to you. I ended up with an upper respiratory infection that floored me for three weeks, thereby eliminating any marathon running I had intended during my vacation.
At Tucson International Airport:
Do NOT book a 2 p.m. flight out of Tucson during the summer. Mid-afternoon is prime monsoon zone, especially on a Saturday with a crowded airport. Your options will be to wait it out, missing any connecting flight and becoming stranded at whatever city the next flight dumps you in, or to go back home and try again the following day at 7 a.m. There’s nothing like a Sunday 5 a.m. drive to the Tucson airport. It was quite pleasant, actually. The only time driving 10 miles or so in Tucson took less than an hour.
At New York’s LaGuardia Airport:
Do NOT fly out of this mess. Although I’ve always touted LaGuardia above Kennedy or Newark, I now don’t know why. When they say to arrive two hours before your flight, they are definitely not kidding. That’s exactly how long it took to wait in the snaking lines that had no real direction, check in a single bag (which you have to haul over to the x-ray machine yourself) and then stand for 45 minutes with your shoes off on cold airport floor while the man in front of you, who came clad in brass belt buckle, large spurred cowboy boots and a 10-gallon supply of metal jewelry, removes all things that make the metal detector beep. A plus at LaGuardia, however, was watching the really angry German man in a San Juan T-shirt argue with the airline workers about bringing 22 carry-ons on board.
At Detroit Metro Airport:
While most of it’s new, gleaming and sprawling, there’s a dinky little downstairs area that looked like it was constructed in 1953. You first have to find the stairwell to the bowels of the building, where you will also find security offices and big signs that say DO NOT ENTER and EXPLOSIVES INSIDE. Instead of the snaking enclosed walkway from the terminal into the plane, you will have a set of rickety stairs they wheel around to tiny aircraft. That’s where planes to New York fly out of.
On Airplanes in General:
The seats got smaller, the delays got longer and they no longer serve free, 9,000-calorie meals. Many of the seats pockets are missing barf bags, something I know since I use them as drawing paper. And unless you’ve bulked up on Airborne, Echinacea, vitamin C and other substances to make your immune system as impenetrable as armor, you’re going to get sick. Recycled air, jet fuel fumes and sitting for hours next to someone hacking up phlegm tends to do that to you. I ended up with an upper respiratory infection that floored me for three weeks, thereby eliminating any marathon running I had intended during my vacation.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
THINGS I LEARNED ON SUMMER VACATION in MICHIGAN:
By Ryn Gargulinski
The first part of my 2007 summer vacation took me to Michigan, both the streets of Detroit and the cozy home in Troy. It was wonderful to see the folks, especially since they bought me a surprise gift, a horrible clown jack-in-the-box that didn't work. We were able to get him to pop out with much shaking and banging and made a fine photo spread. Other things I learned include:
In Detroit, Michigan
Downtown:
It’s not all burnt-down shells of buildings, although quite a few still exist. Pockets of coolness creep about in the revamped Detroit Science Center (complete with dead bodies on display and a large-scale rendition of the Mackinac Bridge), massive strips of tasty Mexican restaurants and a whole block dedicated to an art project with polka dot houses and mannequin parts propped in sculpturistic displays.
At the Detroit Science Center dead bodies exhibit:
The human is one awesome machine. Because of the soft music, muted atmosphere and lack of bodily fluids, the exhibit of dissected, bisected and otherwise chopped up bodies was not gross at all. Signs even explained how the “previous owners” of the bodies knew they would end up propped in museums for people to marvel at. Mom did say one of them smelled a little, so we just avoided that one.
Some of the coolest included a chopped up woman clutching a briefcase waiting for the bus, a seated skeleton in an “attitude” pose and an exhibit comprised only of the body’s blood vessels. The latter resembled a 1970s disco suit.
It was somewhat disconcerting to see two of the info cards with major misspellings, something especially frowned upon at a science museum. I don’t recall the first typo, but the other was describing some arm bones and listed one as “ELLBOW.”
At Belle Isle, Detroit’s island where dad used to play baseball and mom used to walk 7 miles to watch (uphill, in the snow):
Belle Isle, too, would also be a grand place to hang out on the actually clean banks of the Detroit River. Ironically, the day we picked to visit it was a day massive flatbed trucks hauling concrete barriers were making the round to set up for the upcoming Grand Prix event. My nap beneath the shady tree never came, nor did mom’s attempt to rest in the car when she was ousted by the rude flatbeds spewing diesel fumes. She also nearly puked from the excessive lighter fluid someone strew near the sign that said “No barbecues.” Master of acceptance that he is, dad took it in stride and relaxed on a bench to finish his crossword.
In Troy, Michigan
At the family barbecue:
Despite horrid rumors of the modern day family, not all of them are dysfunctional. At least not all the time. The Gargulinski clan members who came to mom’s scrumptious cookout were on their best behavior, even while smearing cupcake frosting all over their faces and grinding Goldfish cracker crumbs into the wooden deck. This included both children and adults. My cousins’ kids are even more adorable than I remember, especially since some weren’t even born yet the last time I visited.
At my parent’s roomy, comfy home (with newly-painted family room paneling that made my parents sore for days):
A flashback to my childhood home of Troy also gave me a chance to see suburbia gets less boring as you get older and don’t care as much if you sit around and do nothing. For a teen, that’s torture. For someone escaping the world for a summer vacay, it’s bliss. I especially enjoyed the very loud crickets that raked evening eardrums, the backyard creek, making dead gerbil Chad a new headstone and having the neighbors stop by to tell my parents how wonderful I looked.
Wandering suburban streets:
Leave it to suburbia to make even the fire hydrants look cute. The biggest changes I saw were a massive increase in housing values, a massive increase in fines if you run over a road worker and a massive influx of Chinese culture. Some of the signs were bilingual. Those of Arab descent have always heavily populated Detroit and are also moving into the suburbs. As is the case everywhere, many prejudices still exist. A prime example was two Arab women in CVS Pharmacy complaining about how much they hated the Mexicans.
The first part of my 2007 summer vacation took me to Michigan, both the streets of Detroit and the cozy home in Troy. It was wonderful to see the folks, especially since they bought me a surprise gift, a horrible clown jack-in-the-box that didn't work. We were able to get him to pop out with much shaking and banging and made a fine photo spread. Other things I learned include:
In Detroit, Michigan
Downtown:
It’s not all burnt-down shells of buildings, although quite a few still exist. Pockets of coolness creep about in the revamped Detroit Science Center (complete with dead bodies on display and a large-scale rendition of the Mackinac Bridge), massive strips of tasty Mexican restaurants and a whole block dedicated to an art project with polka dot houses and mannequin parts propped in sculpturistic displays.
At the Detroit Science Center dead bodies exhibit:
The human is one awesome machine. Because of the soft music, muted atmosphere and lack of bodily fluids, the exhibit of dissected, bisected and otherwise chopped up bodies was not gross at all. Signs even explained how the “previous owners” of the bodies knew they would end up propped in museums for people to marvel at. Mom did say one of them smelled a little, so we just avoided that one.
Some of the coolest included a chopped up woman clutching a briefcase waiting for the bus, a seated skeleton in an “attitude” pose and an exhibit comprised only of the body’s blood vessels. The latter resembled a 1970s disco suit.
It was somewhat disconcerting to see two of the info cards with major misspellings, something especially frowned upon at a science museum. I don’t recall the first typo, but the other was describing some arm bones and listed one as “ELLBOW.”
At Belle Isle, Detroit’s island where dad used to play baseball and mom used to walk 7 miles to watch (uphill, in the snow):
Belle Isle, too, would also be a grand place to hang out on the actually clean banks of the Detroit River. Ironically, the day we picked to visit it was a day massive flatbed trucks hauling concrete barriers were making the round to set up for the upcoming Grand Prix event. My nap beneath the shady tree never came, nor did mom’s attempt to rest in the car when she was ousted by the rude flatbeds spewing diesel fumes. She also nearly puked from the excessive lighter fluid someone strew near the sign that said “No barbecues.” Master of acceptance that he is, dad took it in stride and relaxed on a bench to finish his crossword.
In Troy, Michigan
At the family barbecue:
Despite horrid rumors of the modern day family, not all of them are dysfunctional. At least not all the time. The Gargulinski clan members who came to mom’s scrumptious cookout were on their best behavior, even while smearing cupcake frosting all over their faces and grinding Goldfish cracker crumbs into the wooden deck. This included both children and adults. My cousins’ kids are even more adorable than I remember, especially since some weren’t even born yet the last time I visited.
At my parent’s roomy, comfy home (with newly-painted family room paneling that made my parents sore for days):
A flashback to my childhood home of Troy also gave me a chance to see suburbia gets less boring as you get older and don’t care as much if you sit around and do nothing. For a teen, that’s torture. For someone escaping the world for a summer vacay, it’s bliss. I especially enjoyed the very loud crickets that raked evening eardrums, the backyard creek, making dead gerbil Chad a new headstone and having the neighbors stop by to tell my parents how wonderful I looked.
Wandering suburban streets:
Leave it to suburbia to make even the fire hydrants look cute. The biggest changes I saw were a massive increase in housing values, a massive increase in fines if you run over a road worker and a massive influx of Chinese culture. Some of the signs were bilingual. Those of Arab descent have always heavily populated Detroit and are also moving into the suburbs. As is the case everywhere, many prejudices still exist. A prime example was two Arab women in CVS Pharmacy complaining about how much they hated the Mexicans.
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