Speaking of Retro/Vintage Hell

I just purchased...are you sitting down?... a pair of grey boot cut corduroy pants.

Not a 20-year-old pair of cords from a thrift shop. From Ann Taylor Loft. Brand new.

And a grey/white/orchid plaid scrunchy scarf from NY&Co.

I can't decide if I'm channeling Pam Dawber circa 1978 Mork and Mindy, or an early 90s grunge devotee. Which I totally was. Back in the day.

I'm actually a bit afraid. I think they look good. And the friends who shopped with me at lunch think the cords look good...the jury is still out on the scarf. And the cords are super comfy....

But I can't help thinking I'm going to end up a Glamour Fashion Don't with a black box over my eyes!

Jeebus Tap Dancing Christ, what was I thinking? Am I brave enough to pull this off?!

I thought these were extinct...

Oh, Lordy, y'all...LOOK WHAT I BOUGHT! For $4.99 at Aldi. I have an irresistible urge to part my hair in the middle and wear a medallion.

Excuse me. I have to go twist hemp into fanciful ropes.

Random Observations from the Road

1. If a passenger on an airplane hacks and coughs for the first 30 minutes of a flight without covering his/her mouth, all other passengers should be allowed to render coughing passenger unconscious - by any available means - for the duration of the flight.

2. At night, from 5,000 feet, Santa Barbara looks like a gauzy, glowing cocoon of giant caterpillar people. I'm just sayin'.

3. I love geeks. Girl geeks, boy geeks - all geeks. You might not realize it, but they make life infinitely easier and more enjoyable for the rest of us.

4. In flight, giggling teenage girls are as annoying as screaming babies. At least the babies can't help themselves.

5. Reason number 973 for ripping that old Drum and Bagpipe CD to your iPod: Amazing Grace on the pipes is actually an effective counter-measure against the loquacious Cambodian-American Valley Girls seated behind you.

6. Southern California never fails to creep me out. Sorry SoCal fans. I'm a Midwestern girl, and any region in which men work as hard as women to be pretty, and all these pretty people look like they're dressed in costume...is wrong. Very, very wrong. They all look like television characters. Even the busboys look like they're channeling West Side Story.

7. There is nothing better than coming home to a clean house. Thanks, Hubster. :o)

Friday Funny

I received this for the fourth time today. Makes you think...

Passing thought...

...wonder how much Kanye West paid Mackenzie Phillips? Talk about getting shot out of first place on the Shit List...

Home Security for Hard Times

Courtesy of CometGirl

HOW TO INSTALL A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM

1. Go to a secondhand store and buy a pair of men's work boots, size 14 - 16
2. Place the boots on your front porch along with a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine
3. Add two giant dog dishes to the boots and magazine
4. Leave a note on the door that reads:

Bubba,
Bertha, Duke, Slim, and I went for more ammo and beer. Be back in an hour.

Don't mess with the pit bulls; they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up bad.
I don't think Killer took part, but it was hard to tell from all the blood.
Anyway, I locked all four of 'em in the house.

Better wait outside. Be right back.
Cooter

The animals rule the roost...

The girls on THIS end of this blog are animal people. City Girl has one dog who is a local celebrity, another dog or two and then a couple of cats who...in your next life? You should live so well. I'm just sayin'.

At The Institution, we live in a constant flux of permanent, newborn and abandoned. While we currently host three dogs, five cats, a cockatiel and...OMG. That may be IT and that hasn't happened in forever. No chickens. Rabbits. Fish. Cool beans.

ANYWAY.

When The Not Nice Kid was born and she'll be ten next March, we let The Nice Kid get a puppy. She and The Big Kid brought home a darling tub of fat...Snickers, half-yellow lab/half-golden retriever. (The retriever part is recessive and I STILL think that bitch was lying.) After about two years, we shortened his name to Nick because Snickers didn't quite fit a small horse. You understand.

Nick is stubborn, opinionated and he LOVES his mama. Now, I'm not the one who feeds him; I don't brush, bathe or water him but...this boy's no dummy. He KNOWS who butters his bread and trust me...it's NOT one of The Inmates. When the chips are down, The Mama looks after things and since this dog has more smarts than any OTHER male in The Institution (cracking myself UP here!)...he knows that. (Somewhere in here is a post about when he came into what (he thought) was a burning building, after me. The dog stays.)

Every winter, he puts on a few pounds. (I've heard of that happening ;) But last winter, he put on SEVERAL pounds and then come springtime...he didn't take them off. He didn't take them off come SUMMERTIME, either; so a couple of weeks ago I realized...we need a new plan.

We always kept the dog food in a bowl in the kitchen. The Little Dogs came in a couple of times a day, ate and left. The New Plan involved...moving the food outside. TLD's can eat whenever they like...they're young and skinny, but Nick gets a new plan. Found a "special" dogfood for FAT dogs, brought it home, and...MAJOR pissed off The Nick. Bigtime.

He will go an entire day and never a touch a bite. Fat Dog Food? Kiss my ass. Ultimately, he will deign to eat enough to keep him from passing out from hunger ('scuse me, FATASS...you could probably go six months on water alone) but he makes SURE you know what a tribulation this is.

Finally, day before yesterday, he couldn't stand it anymore. I heard him in the kitchen eating. Crunching away. A few minutes later he walked into the den and sat down in front of me. When I asked if he wanted to go outside, he didn't get up so that means, "No." I made a few more comments and he never blinked or acknowledged any sort of activity.

And then I will be DAMNED if he didn't stand up, bend over between my feet and THROW UP. In the floor. In the house. Never done that in his life. THREW UP. Between my feet IN THE DEN.

I gave the $12-for-five-pounds of fat dog food to TLD's and spend $24 for five pounds of...gourmet? Better? Tastier?

No...guilt-free. Honey, I can't do any better than this and your mutt ass better start APPRECIATING some expenditure.

I'm still not believing the low animal count. I think I need to go circle the house and make sure there's not a starving mouth hanging around somewhere.

The Untimely Demise of my Brain

Yesterday I had an excellent idea for a post - brilliant, even. Inspired by the environment here in wicked cool Silicon Valley.

I looo-ooove me some GeekTown, USA.

But in the middle of the night an alarm, accidentally set, went off on my iTouch.

I thought it was the fire alarm. I freaked out. It was two o'clock in the morning. I didn't recognize the sound...eventually realized it wasn't loud enough to be a warning of impending peril (and that it was coming from my otherwise harmless purse) and I never fell back to sleep.

So here I sit, completely sleep deprived, trying like HELL to be charming on cue (no small task under the best conditions) and I absolutely cannot remember the topic of the post.

I can't hold up my end of the CG/CG workload today. Sorry, CG1. Damn.

To make it up to you, Team Jacob fans, here is an amazing sight to behold courtesy of the LA Times.

Boys shouldn't be allowed to get that hot until they are of legal age.

YOOOOW-za.

NOT "speaking ill of the dead..."

But rather, "out of the mouths of babes."

We're driving along the other morning and The Nice Kid, who is 14 and hears all SORTS of wild junior high school trivia, announces, "Mom, someone said that Billy Mays died of an overdose."

I said something about not believing everything you hear. Then she says, "Yeah, but they said he died like Elvis did...something went wrong with his heart because he was abusing drugs." I was right in the middle of getting wound up in my spiel about the dangers of ANY sort of abuse of ANY sort of anything when The Not Nice Kid, who is in fourth grade and gets all her information from two nine-year-old boys trying to be cool, says, "Oh YEAH? Trevor says he died from drinking his own stuff."

Death by OxyClean. Say it ain't so.

Friday Funny

Doctor Who Humor

When Dr. Who meets Dr. Perricone

(That may be waaay too random...we'll see)

Those really are my gloves...

I signed up for a welding class. No reason, it's just something I had been wanting to do for YEARS; so when I drove past the trade school and the sign was up...I turned around and went back. Now, it didn't cost the oh, say...SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS I thought it would, but since I had turned around and gone back and walked through the door...I wrote a check for $250 and there was no turning back. Good thing, because the day of? I'd have backed out in a minute for anything under $125.

Y'all...(not to be cute)...I HAD A BLAST. Got there and...oooops. It's me and 14 redneck guys from the north side of the county and...THEY ARE ALL LOOKING FOR JOBS. I honestly did not expect this...I thought it would be a bunch of middle-aged, bored, wannabe's...wait, that's me. No, for real, I thought it would be me and a bunch of other people like me...lamps and lawn furniture repair.

I was wrong.

Luckily? I think that as a general rule...they thought it was a hoot that I was there. It took about five minutes to realize that, when the instructor asked for input? They were all going to sit there and stare at him. So hey, this is what I do. Ask for a suggestion and I'll give you a direction. Works every time.

We watched a safety/instructional video for 45 minutes and in hindsight...that was a good idea. A real good idea. Then, we learned how to hook up, check and regulate the oxygen and gas. And THEN, we proceded to learn how to cut through a piece of metal.

No big deal, right? They don't offer college degrees in welding so obviously any idiot can do it, right? Right?

Wrong. Real wrong. Or at least...THIS idiot couldn't do it.

My first cut was okay...my second cut SUCKED and I gave up. Third time was better but...later on I realized that it's like shooting a gun. I am a decent shot, and it's because you take a deep breath, you relax and then you...zone. It's not about you...it's about the sight and the gun and the pressure on the trigger.

Well, that's how the welding goes but...shit, fire. It's HOT, you have to be steady for a LONG time, and if you mess up? You have to go back to your solid point and get the metal melting again and get going again.

They don't serve cocktails. Or fingerfood.

And then? I am not making this up...my best buddy (my kids, as you recall, call me a freak magnet...weird guy in the vicinity? He finds me) had Parkinsons. You know, the disease that makes you shake. Now, my one-legged alcoholic cousin with prostate cancer has Marie-Tooth-Stone (that's a very rare, very mean, muscular disease and we are very good as a family at functioning with this disability) so I AM more sympathetic than you are but...you have never hurt so badly in your life as when you are WILLING...with your brain and your heart...that torch to stop wobbling and get to that metal. Forget STAYING there...just HEAT IT UP. We helped him a lot. He had a great time.

I got a pair of gloves and a pair of safety glasses. I wore a welding mask that no telling WHO has had on (me, the person who can't go to the movie theater because...I can't sit in those seats. Where other people have been.) and when I got home The Nice Kid took one look and said, "What happened to YOU?"

Soaking wet...every square inch of me was drenched in sweat but...I had the time of my life. I was NOT the dumbest person in the class, and I may not have been perfect but...I was acceptable. I took my camera but since it was first class, I wasn't comfortable enough to take pictures.

Next week? I'm gonna have all those guys put in their teeth, and I'm going to snap away. Me and the boys. In welding class.

(The real reason? My friends don't believe me. My buddy, Kenny, who builds these parts for race cars and ships them all over the world? Invited me for an afternoon of circular cuts. I am on my WAY!)

Cultural Commentary

Actually, I suppose this is less cultural and more just, "Random Thoughts on Current Events" - but that isn't alliterative, is it?

Kanye West - Yes, kids, I saw it live and sat, on the couch, with my mouth hanging open for a solid 10 minutes. He is an asshat, and anyone who thinks he is a 'man' because he took the mic away from a 95 lb. little girl (I'm looking at YOU, #VMA Tweeters) is just as big an asshat. Is he related to Michael Vick? Seriously. Talk about a total absence of impulse control.

Twilight - I. Am. Dy-ing. There is no way I can make it until 20 November to see New Moon. I am obsessed. I'm re-reading New Moon for the ::mumble:: time...WHY is a grown woman so completely...obsessed...with these stories? It makes no sense. But I don't care - I'm still 20 years old on the inside and as long as I don't look in the mirror, I can believe I'm still as young as the characters. Plus, I [heart] Jacob.

Patrick Swayze - I really don't like any of his movies, and thought he pretty much, um, sucked as an actor (I know, I know, don't speak ill of the dead). But bless his soul. No one deserves to die from Pancreatic Cancer. What a slow, torturous death.

Okay, Dirty Dancing wasn't awful, but only because it birthed the line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Brian Urlacher - He is the Chicago Bears'...well, he IS the Chicago Bears. And now he's out for the season. Separated his wrist during the Bears first regular-season game. You know the Chicago sports fans' mantra, right? "There's always next year." ::sigh::

Rep. Joe Wilson - Can't the rest of the U.S. just disown South Carolina? Seriously. The Civil War (sorry, Southerners, The War of Northern Aggression) started in South Carolina. Their Governor is a raging sack of hormones who can't keep his mouth shut, and now Joe Wilson. Not to mention his supporters who have thrown $250k at him since his outburst. Has anything good besides Shrimp and Grits ever come from that state?

Jay Leno - Meh.

So that's all the commentary I have for the day...possibly the week. What's been eating at you lately?

So I'm a little slow...

...but it just hit me as funny, and I have laughed all day.

Remember, a couple of weeks back the neighbor kid (a 110-pound boy) beat the hell out of 70-pound The Not Nice Kid? And we had a serious...no, TWO serious redneck screaming matches out in the yard?

When TNNK came in crying, and told that the boy had held her down by her neck and beat her face with his closed fist, I had had enough. (While he is normally the sweetest, most helpful child on the planet, this kid has anger issues and about twice a year...loses his shit. This time, MY kid was in his path.) So I stormed out of here and knocked on their door.

And no one answered.

Now, YOUR kid beat the hell out of MY kid less than two minutes ago and when he realized what he'd done he went high-tailing it into the house so...unless there's some secret passage I don't know about, YOU ARE IN THERE. Finally, when they didn't come to the door (a digression...they don't come to the door when the local rescue squad calls collecting donations. They DO, however, CALL the rescue squad ambulance everytime FAT ASS has a twinge. I'm just sayin'.)

I knocked more than once. They didn't answer. So finally, I pushed open the door and called the mom's name. No answer. I called again and finally after the third or fourth time I hear her get up, come through the kitchen and I swear, she walked down the steps and said,

"Kevin's smelling the dog right now."

Now, at the time, I was so mad I just started yelling but later on...

"Kevin's smelling the dog right now."

As opposed to...WHAT? Licking the walls?

"Kevin's smelling the dog right now."

Turns out, that's what started the fight. THEIR pit bull had MY cat in his mouth and when he wouldn't put it down TNNK sprayed the dog with wasp killer. But I didn't KNOW that so...

"Kevin's smelling the dog right now."

Great. Let me know when he's not busy. There's a little something I'd like to discuss with him.

Weekend Bonus Funny

Friday Funny

Alternate Universe CityGirl

W.T.F. happened yesterday?

Can somebody tell me? Because I'm still a little freaked out.

So, going all the way back to the first boy who ever kissed me when I was 14, Nicky Capezio, I've not had great luck with men. Fortunately, my luck changed a dozen years ago but my closet is still over-freaking-flowing with testosterone-addled skeletons.

This bad luck was either exacerbated or caused by the fact that I've suffered from a lovely melange of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and RAD since infancy, Panic Disorder since kindergarten-ish, and PTSD since I was 9, as diagnosed by several professionals. During years and YEARS of therapy.

I've made bad decisions about boys since...okay always. I ALWAYS made bad decisions about boys.

High school was a nightmare. My first marriage did not go well. My second marriage is not even worth mentioning. In my early 20s I really did fall ass-over-teakettle in love with a boy who, ultimately, did not love me. The only boy who ever broke my heart. This all happened before the age of 25.

I got help. I got diagnosed, started meds, started college, got a life and laid off the man meat for a long time. Got my life together. Met Hubster 10 years later and now my life ROCKS.

So what happened yesterday? Both my high school boyfriend AND my first husband friended me on Facebook. HSBF actually apologized for having been a selfish dick. First husband went on about how beautiful I still am. Both of them. In the same day.

Umm....yeah....wait...WHAT?

Through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole, into Narnia...I don't know exactly what happened (it was 09/09/09, right? weird) but I SHOULD have bought a freakin' lottery ticket yesterday.

Because, I ask you, WHAT are the chances?

Please tell me this didn't happen...

A couple of weeks ago I was looking at something and J. Peterman popped up. When I checked out the website, there was a Facebook link so of COURSE I signed up. Fun stuff.

Someone on my list saw it on the sidebar and added it to her page, with the comment that she didn't know the company was still in business and a reminescence about a factory store in Kentucky.

Someone ELSE commented, and I'm not making this up..."I still remember how surprised I was when I found out J. Peterman isn't a creation of 'Seinfeld'!"

For real. Said that.

I've been trying to decide if a certain degree of ignorance is acceptible if you didn't live through certain things. Ummm...NOT!

That family circus thing...

A while back FatBoyFat commented in a post about having children: that so far he and his wife had never had the urge to procreate at the same time. So...no kids. It made me think...I was going to write a post about why I DO have kids, but the last several months have been such a comedy of errors that the only rationale I have? It really IS biological. There is no reasonable purpose for deliberately living like this.

Having said that...I love these kids. They are my primary reason for functioning (see? reason #1 not to have kids...it's not about you anymore) out in the real world. But on a daily basis I would look at things and think, "See? If you didn't have kids you wouldn't be buying shampoo for the third time in a week because The Nice Kid never puts the top back on anything and it all leaked out into the shower floor. Again." And then I would realize...that's not a battle and I HAVE learned to choose.

Then I got ready to leave for a doctor's appointment and...the clicker to my car is gone. Turns out? TNK went out early this morning to unlock the car and...put it in her pocket. Which is in her pants in her school in a town 20 miles away. Pisser. (Reason #2...NOTHING is ever as you planned it.)

It's only little things, but it is the sum total of my life...no clean towels. An empty milk jug in the refrigerator. Ants in the car because someone dropped a banana peel in the floorboard on the way to school. Washing a sweatshirt ALL SUMMER LONG because every time I wash it and hang it up? They throw it down in the floor looking for something else and it gets dog hair all over it. Dogs in the house...dog not in the house. Animals (THAT I DIDN'T WANT) not fed. Again.

The list goes on, but then I step back and Y'ALL! These are the coolest people on the planet. TNK is approaching 1200 volunteer hours at assisted living and she's 14 years old. She has friends wearing North Face and Sperry and friends with piercings. She can read three books in one day and loves to take my camera and shoot awesome pictures. But then...then...we call it Planet Pariss, because there's no one home but her.

Saturday morning I picked her up from a sleep-over and we stopped at McDonald's to get breakfast. For four. Well, I had coupons but you're only allowed one coupon per visit and I...needed more food than that. So I put her out at the side and sent her in to buy two McGriddles, while I went through the drive-thru for two chicken biscuits. This was Saturday morning, so it took a while. I waited in line. Placed my order. Inched into the main line. Paid. Waited. Inched up again. Got my food.

When I rounded the corner of the building she wasn't standing there, so I pulled off to the side to wait. After about two minutes I realized I was in the way, so I pulled into a parking spot. Waited a little bit and then got out my sudoku. Started figuring. Eventually, I realized I had been sitting there for nearly ten minutes...WHERE THE HELL IS MY KID?

Turned the car off, got out and went inside and there she stood. I probably had "that look" on my face because the first words out of her mouth were, "They're not calling out the numbers in order." Just then the speaker blares, "Ticket 179. Ticket 179."

TNK holds up her receipt and said, "I'm 284." When I asked had she missed her call she assures me that no, she's been standing right there and just about the time I get ready to start screaming about TEXTING when you are supposed to be LISTENING, the speaker announces, in a VERY peeved voice, "NUMBER ONE TWENTY-TWO. ONE TWENTY-TWO. Two McGriddles!!"

And I turn around to glare at my child who says, "But that's not my number!" and I said, "Well, that's your ORDER," and she goes and gets the bag and we get in the car and...

$2.84

Her total. What she owed.

We spent TWENTY MINUTES in a MCDONALDS on a SATURDAY morning.

She will vote. And reproduce. And I perpetuated these genes. Having said that? She's your favorite person when you meet her and I'm just along for the ride.

You Are Now Leaving Cougartown

Do you know what is really, REALLY just irritating the ever-lovin' crap out of me lately?

Cougars.

If you Google "cougar" the first search result has nothing to do with mountain lions. Ho, no. The first result is an ad reading, "Cougars and Younger Men: www.dateacougar.com"

I sit before you today, at my keyboard, to officially call "bullshit" on the cougar label.

We've covered this before, but it bears repeating: I am not a feminist. I believe in equal pay for equal work, but I also believe that men should open doors for women.

As someone firmly planted in the middle of the road, even I think this Cougar bullshit double-standard has gone waaaay far enough.

According to Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Mt. Olympus and wherever else the arbiters of what is socially acceptable reside, a middle-aged woman who dates a man more than a few years her junior is slapped with a title that likens her to a stone-cold predator.

BUT, a middle-aged MAN who dates a woman who is more than a few years younger, is just a Guy. A Man. Normal. Or, if anything, A Lucky Bastard.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

You know, if you think about it, Older Women/Younger Men is AKT-CHEW-ALLY more logical than Older Men/Younger Women. This, THIS should be the norm.

Look at it this way, when a woman meets a man, she wants him to know what he's doing in the sack, if you know what I mean. And I know you do.

How is a 25-year-old guy supposed to learn anything from a 23 year-old girl? He SHOULD be dating a woman who 1. is in her sexual prime, as he is 2. has been around the bed a few times 3. can SHOW him what a woman wants. Dude then takes this knowledge and applies it to younger women, who then learn what good sex is. As opposed to mindless groping.

It's the circle of life. Young guy learns from older woman - young guy then teaches young girl...who eventually becomes older woman...at which point the now matured guy dumps not-so-young-anymore woman for a newer model, resulting in the more common older man/younger woman scenario. Dumped older woman - in her prime - finds new young guy who, frankly, can keep it up a lot longer, and the cycle starts over again.

Follow?

So rather than everyone enduring an entire decade (their 20s) of bad sex, young girls should date older men, while young guys date older women. The elders teach the youngers, and then everyone meets, much more satisfied, in the middle at, say, 30. People really shouldn't get married before 30 anyway.

AND nobody gets slapped with some stupid label like "Cougar."

Damn. Now I'm in the mood for a really rare hamburger. ::mmmrrrrooooowwww::

Friday Funny

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

Brain Bleach, anyone?

Twilight Geek-o-rama

Jeez almighty, that was a wicked...something. Fever, chills, cough, feeling strangled...very odd.

Anyway, I'm glad it's gone. Hasta la vista, Ebola.

So I totally - TOTALLY - geeked out on all things electronically Twilight while I dodged the shadow of death for five days.

(Okay, okay - it wasn't that bad, but I don't "do" sick very well. No bucking up. No stiff upper lip. No acting live I've progressed passed the 4th Grade.)

I discovered - God help me - Twilight fan fiction. If you are a Twi-hard, and do not already read fanfic, do yourself a favor and don't start.

The good stuff is extremely difficult to find (love ya, aspiring smut writers, but until you've actually had a relationship - or sex - don't try to write about it) but once you do get a hold of a good story, it is impossible to put down. Plus the good stories - you know, the stories with plots...the stories that have been spell-checked - are approximately as long as an actual novel.

I also checked out every image, video and little news bit I could find on Rpattz, Kstew and Taylor Lautner (Tlaw?). News Flash - They're appearing on the MTV Awards on 13 September at which time an extended New Moon trailer will premiere. Go set the DVR now, before you forget.

In other, more obscure, New Moon News - and, let's face it, if you've read this far, you're aching for the Twi dish - the soundtrack will be released on 13 October and features Death Cab for Cutie. Very cool.

Have also been watching Mitch Hansen on the YouTube. Dude is wicked talented.

Finally, if you haven't seen the Take 180 trailer spoof, go on and click that link. Too funny.
"Da Pacific Nort-wes?" LOL

Dancing Slippers or House Slippers?

According the Death's dance card, it's my turn to waltz with The Plague.

Sorry, kids, but I'm down for a while.

Luckily, Tea and Sympathy and Mildred Pierce are playing on the Classic Movies Channel today.

I hope I can stay awake long enough...to........ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz