Things To Hate and Love at Christmas

Well, its almost December and the Christmas season is in full flower. There are so many things to love about the season, it sounds cliched when you start to list them. I'm going to do it anyway as soon as I finish listing the things that really piss me off. You can do this if you are half curmudgeon on your mom's side as I am. Here we go: I detest songs that aren't about Christmas but toss in the word "Christmas" to get air play. Case in point - "Last Christmas" by George Michael. I'm sure you've heard the insipid drivel... "Last Christmas you gave me your heart and the very next day you tore it apart..." Its a break up song - not a Christmas song. When I hear that piece of crap I want to punch Santa Claus.

I hate pfefferneusse. First of all, it is a stupid word. I know its not English but its dumb. And those nasty, plastic, chemical tasting, squishy excuses for cookies taste like they've got styrofoam as a main ingredient. The only good part is the icing. If you are ever at a Christmas party and you find pfefferneusse with the icing nibbled off tucked in a napkin and stuffed in the trash, come and find me! We'll chat...

If there's one more performance by a skanky, rehabbed, slutburger of a singer trying to evoke a child's wonder of Christmas by opening their eyes really wide and enunciating really well, I will vomit in my Christmas stocking. The only ones who can successfully evoke a child's wonder of Christmas are - children - and that only lasts for a few years. Then wonder is out the door and greed steps in, settles into the recliner and starts barking orders and making lists.

The only thing worse than Christmas sweaters on humans is Christmas clothing on pets. Bitches, please...pets are not decorations. Dogs and cats are inherently adorable. When you put antlers on them, it does not add cuteness - it takes away their dignity. Newsflash - the dog in the Grinch story is fictional. That's why he's cute - not because of the little antler on his head.

Lastly, (and I know there's more stuff about Christmas that irritates me but I can't think of it just now, or it hasn't started bugging me this early in the season...) I'm getting sick of muzak versions of Christmas music. Those overly arranged songs with too many strings make me want to smack Rudolph - right on his little blinky nose.

Now, I love the smell of Christmas trees. In front of any store that has seasonal greenery on its sidewalk, you will find me with my nose buried in an evergreen, sniffing. I love that smell. The sound of the Salvation Army bells is a great Christmas thing. I always carry dollars for when I see one of them. I really like it when they give me a little candy cane... Butter cookies are wonderful especially the ones with almond extract in them - frosted. Mmmmmm! Christmas is the only time of year when non-chocolate sweets are acceptable.

Good Christmas music is marvelous. Today at FoodMax I heard a Rat Pack-ish rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and I almost popped open a redi-mix martini. It was so good! As I said, there is much to love about the Christmas season. That's probably why the other stuff gets my undies in such a bunch. And it's still November! By Christmas Day, I'm probably just going to have to go commando since all my undies will be tangled in a giant wad. Better add new undies to my list...

Not A Lot like Prison

We had so much fun today. The hub and I went to San Francisco where we met a friend we worked with 30 years ago on Alcatraz. Yes we all worked on Alcatraz. We were park rangers when it cost $2 to ride the boat over to the island. The tour was free - still is - you pay for the boat although it costs a whole lot more to go take the boat now than it did in 1979.

Considering that the place was a prison, and a generally depressing place when it was open, we had an unseemly amount of fun when we worked out there. We all had to walk the mile and a half tour route three times a day and it was uphill the whole way. As a result, we were all skinny as rails so all the seventy five cent beer we drank at the Eagle bar had no effect on our flab quota. Sometimes we'd meet somebody in the bar had been on our tour and then - free beer!

Alcatraz was a terrific place to have a party, too. We just had to make sure the beer smell was gone by the time the first tour went through in the morning. Once, a bunch of us decided to spend the night on the island. We went crabbing off the dock and reenacted the bludgeoning murders that happened on the island on the delicious little crustaceans so we could eat them. The bad part was that the night watchman was a vegetarian pacifist who quit his job shortly after our crab dinner. Oops - our bad. We were kind of gross.

We gave good tour, though. Once I was leading my group up the hill and we stumbled upon a group of really tall, very beautiful, half naked women. They saw us and ran screaming into a tent that I had never seen before. I recovered my composure and called to my group. And called again to the men. The other people that were there informed us that they were shooting a Macy's ad and their spotter got distracted (hmm wonder why?). They were very sorry.

I finally wrangled my men back into my group ( I might have lost one short, bald guy but his wife didn't seem to mind). Anyway, I started giving my tour again and looked down at my drab NPS uniform. One lady read my mind and piped up "Oh honey, if you can look good in what you've got on, you can look good in anything." I loved her instantly and wanted her to be my mommy.

Alcatraz was a great place to work and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I think the visitors could tell how much we liked working there - it had to show in our faces, our whole beings. We loved that place - still do - but we can't drink beer like we used to and if we tried to walk one and a half miles uphill three times a day five days a week, we would die.

Motivationaly Speaking

The hub and I just got back from a special edition of Fat Camp. We listened to a motivational speaker and Chris Farley notwithstanding, she was really - motivating! She stands just a shade under 5 feet tall and she weighed 281 lbs at her heaviest. She lost150 pounds and has kept it off for four years. Now, I wish we hadn't seen her just three days before Thanksgiving because I was really looking forward to honking down half a turkey, but I think that might have been the plan all along.

Last night we went to some friends' house for dinner. I offered to take dessert, and I made brownies. This was difficult for me because I love brownie batter. Also brownies, cut correctly spew many, many, huge juicy crumbs which I like to eat. I managed to get enough batter into the pan to make a batch and enough brownies onto a platter to qualify as dessert. The crumbs were delicious...

The great thing about this practice Thanksgiving dinner was that the hub and I got to find our stumbling blocks. Mine is mostly the whole dinner. I'm a carb lover and Thanksgiving dinner is like my version of heroin. A kilo of stuffing, a kilo of potatoes (sweet and mashed) and don't get me started on the pies.In addition to the carbs, I can totally snarf a good pound of turkey and the odd thing is that if you weigh everything I eat on Thursday and add gravy, I guarantee I will put at least twice as much flab on my hips as the weight of the fix (I mean food).

They say that the average person will put on 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years. It takes 3500 calories over and above what you burn to gain one pound...that's freaking 35,000 extra calories! Dang. I'm gonna have to watch it. Not like I used to watch it - straight down my gullet. Plus, we're having a contest in Fat Camp. Everybody who wants to puts in $5 and the one who loses the most (unlikely that everybody will lose), or if everybody gains (likely as heck), the one who maintains or gains least wins the pot.

Competitive weenie that I am, I'll try to win. My desire to triumph over my adversaries will help me avoid temptation. My need to win will trump my desire to stuff myself with cookies. But then, that may have been the plan all along.

Tell Me a Tail

Lately, I've had lots of time lately to spend with my pets. The dogs have us trained to get them treats whenever we go into the kitchen. If we don't, the larger of the two (a Border Collie) woofs at me til I do. The two cats are cool looking and really pretty but they are dumb as dirt. Once, we were trying to figure out what animals cats are stupider than. We got to krill and couldn't think of anything else. They are fun, sweet and really cute, but haven't got the brains God gave a turnip. Now, I'm not saying that dogs are that smart, but compared to cats? Einstein!

One of the coolest things about all of them is their tails. Wilson, our kitten, sometimes notices he has something attached to his butt which really makes him mad so he grabs his rear end with both front paws and attacks his tail. He ends up somersaulting off whatever surface he happens to be on which is usually our bed. When he lands on the floor he sits up and looks around completely bewildered. Then he saunters off as if to say " What? I didn't do anything."

The dogs just use their tails to register emotion. They wag when they're happy, hang when they're sad and go under their legs when they're scared. It would be so cool to have a tail! I wouldn't want a prehensile one because I would feel compelled to climb things and I really don't like heights. I would wag it a lot, though.

If people had tails it would make clothes a lot different. I can just hear them on Project Runway; "Heidi, look at the embellishment on the tail area!" "I was just noticing that, Nina, its brilliant!" Furniture would have to be designed to accommodate tails. I can see that recliners could be a problem but when I found a chair I like I would wag like there is no tomorrow.

I would wag my tail at the gym unless it got caught in a weight machine. Then I'd yelp and put it between my legs when I got it out. When I saw the hub or my kids, I'd wag it like crazy. When I went by my old work place, it would stick straight out and bristle like a big mascara brush. A tail would be awesome on cold days - You could wrap it around your feet instead of slippers. On April Fool's Day, your tail could tap people on the shoulder while you're looking totally in the other direction. Plus you could secretly hold tails behind everybody's back if you had a "thing" going on. There are all kinds of kinky possibilities which I am embarrassed to go into but use your imagination.

I think I need to spend less time contemplating my pets. I'm starting to really want a tail. And not just because I'm thinking kinky. Can you imagine sports teams congratulating each other with tails? Football pads for tails? This could go on for a really long time. I have lots of time on my hands...

Love Me, Love My Hair

I was raised by a mom who loved me but had really odd ways of showing it. Nowadays, and since my kids were little, parents have known that its important to make sure a child has a healthy self esteem. Its gotten to the point that its not unusual to run into a kid with an ego the size of a Buick. Then you want to run into them again. But, I digress.

My mom was of the opinion that a person, particularly a female person, should never like her looks. Her hair was to be scorned, processed and dyed (in her favor, she did have a kind of Pepe Le Pew meets Cruella DeVille thing going on under the dye). Faces are places to put makeup ("After 16, a woman needs to wear makeup every day" ), and bodies are to be reviled and forced to lose weight whether they need to or not. But not by doing excercise. Just by eating less and less. Its a wonder my sister and I aren't anorexic. I do take Paxil every day, though...

The wierd thing is, my mom was an extrordinarily beautiful woman. She always reminded me of Snow White, what with the black hair, blue eyes and pale skin. She also had a rack like Marilyn Monroe. Since she never nursed babies (It wasn't done in the '50s) so those puppies were perky til the day she died. I got my chest from my dad - literally. Oh well, they say small busted women have big hearts and I do.

Once, when I was about seven, I asked my mom if I was pretty. If she'd said "yes", I would have felt good and forgotten all about it. What she said was "Looks aren't important - what's important is your personality". She was right, of course, but not hearing "yes" meant "no" to my larval brain. And I have remembered that all these years. She also always told me I needed to lose "5 more pounds". I also should wear my hair short because the long hair "adds 5 pounds" My mom had a thing about 5 pounds. Every Christmas she "gained 5 pounds" and was "on a diet"She must have gained and lost 5,000 pounds over the course of my childhood. Five pounds at a time.

It bugged her that I didn't really care about my weight, hair length/style, ("After 16 - pigtails belong in the barnyard") or make up. She said one day that she was too young to have a gray haired child. I said it wasn't that gray and I didn't want to dump chemicals all over my head so I look young. She said "Oh, no you're not one of those women who likes their gray hair!" Heaven forbid I should like my hair. I've been working out like a maniac lately so I'm liking my body, too. Mom's ashes are probably whirling around in their urn.

Anyway, I know that "5 more pounds" was Momese for "I love you", but it wasn't great for developing self esteem. I've lost 50 pounds now and it would be cool to be able to show my mom but she'd probably say "You're going to keep it up, right? And lose 5 more pounds." Then I'd have to scream until no more sound came out and eat til there was no more food in the house. Hey, I think I just figured something out - I wasn't a fat ugly kid - I was normal!

Warmth in Winter

When I was a kid, my family moved with my father's job to Copenhagen, Denmark. There were lots of cool things about living there; travel, culture, history, but the neatest things I came across and what I carry with me to this day from the Great Frozen North are the covers on my bed.

We went to Denmark from Houston, Texas, where covers on your bed were really just a formality. You certainly didn't need them to keep warm - warm was the default state of existence in Houston and covers were usually kicked off. They were a nod to tradition, but not technically necessary for sleep.

In Denmark, people used eiderdown comforters. I loved them! At the time I was 11 years old and I didn't realize that all those little eider ducks had to die to make me toasty. Even in summer, the comforters were nice for optimum snoozability. In winter they were crucial. In Danish they were called a"dyne" which looks like its pronounced "dine" but its not. Pronounced correctly and passed through my American filter, it comes out "doona".

Nowadays, there are dyne fillers that are synthetic and much cheaper than genuine duck down. Plus you don't have to denude a little duck butt to get it. I like the down ones, though, because, well, because, oh heck, I'm a pig, they're nicer than the fake ones. Sorry ducks.

There's a bit of science to sleeping properly under a dyne. You lay still and don't flap the covers around because you are busy generating a warm air pocket around yourself. If you want to turn over, you can't raise the covers up and flip, you have to slowly rearrange your body so the air pocket stays intact. It becomes second nature quickly when you're a kid. When you're trying to drum this behavior into your grown up hubby's head - it can take 25 - 30 years.

I usually get in bed before the hub-unit and get a nice envelope of temperate air generated. He comes in and instead of raising a tiny flap of dyne and sliding under the covers, he raises his whole side of the dyne and breeches my air pocket! He has improved over the years but since we only use the dyne in cold weather, he has to relearn the procedure every winter. My hub is good at a great many things getting into bed with a dyne is not always one of them.

Anyway, I was thinking about stapling his side down, but that would probably damage the dyne. But I'm cool with his misappropriation of my air pocket as long as it only happens once or twice a year. I enjoy my dyne. It reminds me of my childhood in Denmark. In Denmark I learned that Gorm the Old was the first Viking king, beer is good, and that nothing beats a dyne for a great night's sleep!

Inspector Gadget D.D.S.

Sometime in the last year, I broke a tooth. Last time I went in for a cleaning, they found the broken tooth and made me an appointment to get it fixed. I forgot to go to that appointment. See, I have very ambivalent feelings about dentists; not the people themselves, but all those tools and the sounds and smells. Well, I went in for my current cleaning last week and my tooth had not miraculously fixed itself. Even though I willed it to. Stupid tooth.

So, I went into the dentist's office today, hardly shaking at all. I sat gingerly on a wing chair in the waiting room. I prefer the sofa, but another Nervous Nellie was parked there. She got called in first. We avoided eye contact as she disappeared into the back. I sent silent good thoughts her way. The door opened again almost immediately and they called my name.

I marched back into the bowels of the dentistry and plopped in the really comfy chair ( I really want one of those! ) and my dentist came in. I've been going to this same dentist for nearly 25 years and I adore him. He's a total gadgetophile, so I know my teeth and gums are state of the art. Plus the hygienist always loads me up with enough floss that I never have to buy it. So I score big time!

Today, I got numbed up beyond all imagination, then the dentist and his assistant performed the most intricate manual ballet with water squirters, air sprayers, sucking devices, and wads of cotton and gauze. At one time or another, there were lights, cameras, and action in my mouth. I didn't know my lips could stretch that far! I was fine until he started up the drill which makes that whiney sound. As soon as I hear that, every muscle in my body clenches and Dr. Nice Man asks "Does it hurt?" I say "Ngo - ith dust the sownd". He says "I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do about that." I bet if a method to get rid of that sound exists he'll get one and if it doesn't, he'll invent it.


He'd have retired years ago but there are always new dentist toys. In fact, today as he was numbing my bottom lip to Angelina proportions he told me he'd ordered a device that can numb just one tooth at a time. It hadn't come yet - but soon! I knew I should have forgotten this appointment, too.... There was a really cool thing, though, after he got my tooth drilled out, he took pictures with his computer gizmo and sent the photo to a little magic machine. It carved up a chunk of toothish looking stuff into exactly the shape that fit my tooth! A little glue, some drool and I was on my way with a brand new crown and I didn't have to wait with a temporary for a week.

Here are four words I never thought would issue from my brain: I love my dentist! If he ever does retire, I'll have to haul my comfy chair to his house and wait on his lawn til he comes out to check my teeth. I'll take along some dental toys to entice him. It could work...

Football Night in My Living Room

So I'm busy sitting on my butt watching the Patriots grind the Colts into the turf. I enjoy watching football. I do not understand the game beyond the basics but its fun to watch. I really like Peyton Manning even though he's a Republican. Hey, nobody's perfect. He has a rocket for an arm and he's really funny. Peyton is one of the few athletes on TV that they put in ads who is genuinely funny. Tom Brady is a handsome man who is also a great quarterback. He is very fertile and apparently can cause a woman to conceive just by appearing on the cover of a magazine she's holding. I think he's a little effeminate looking. But then I like a scruffy guy.

I enjoy looking at Randy Moss, he's what they call a "tall drink of water". He's a wide receiver. No clue what that is and he's not really wide at all but he catches a lot of balls. Randy used to be a Raider but he was better than all the other Raiders combined so he became a Patriot. Dallas Clark is a Colts tight end. I like tight ends because they tend to have them. In fact if I played football, I'd like to be a tight end, just so announcers could say my name and "tight end" in the same breath.

It would be weird to be a center because the quarterback gets very familiar with your nether regions. Centers rarely have tight ends. They do have big guts, but "big gut" is not an official position. If I was a center, I would worry about gassiness. That could be devastating in an important game - I mean imagine if its 3rd and goal and your team is 4 points down. There's one minute to go in the fourth and the center lets one go just as the Q.B. puts his hands in the center's wahoo and starts calling the signals . What does he do? Blame the burrito he ate at lunch? I think the center would have to step up and accept responsibility for vaporizing his team's chance at the playoffs.

Like I said, I understand the basics but all this route, pattern, halfback, fullback, stuff simply doesn't compute. Just give the large man the ball and let all the other large men jump on him. Once, when I was a teenager, I met Joe Namath in a restaurant. He always looked small on the field on TV but in person he was HUGE! He signed an autograph for me and my sister "Love and peace, Joe Willie Namath." My mom checked to see that he wrote the right kind of "peace" before she let us have them. Joe was a playa and my mom had a dirty mind. Great combo .

So, the Colts are showing signs of life, the cheerleaders are shaking their things and the beer products are stupid (a can that changes color when its cold - really? But those ads are really clever.) and I'm still sitting here watching. I've decided that if I had to choose I'd take Payton over Tom. Sense of humor goes waaaay farther than girly good looks any day!


UPDATE: Colts win! I chose well...

The Story of Smokey & Boo Boo

I know the title of this blog is "Emptynested", but I have to admit that we've had a fledgling living here for the last year and a half. After I had my stroke, our daughter came home to help me out. This was very sweet of her, and I am grateful for everything she has done to help. I'm also ready for her to move back to Seattle. The daughter-unit discovered the first time she moved to the Emerald City (for college) that she loves living in the city and when she moved back here to the 'burbs, I think we both discovered that she probably should stay there.

We had some hamsters once that illustrate this point perfectly. Originally, we had one hamster; a female named Smokey. The son-unit came home from third grade one day so excited. "Mom! guess what?! Vince (all my son's friends had old guy names) has a hamster and its a boy! We could have babies!" I said "OK - we'll put them together for one weekend and if anything happens fine - but we're not going to do it again." The hub said "If?"

The next Friday, Vince and his mom showed up with the hamstud in a shoe box. We put him in Smokey's cage and they eyed each other suspiciously across the wire floor. The fact that my two kids and Vince had their faces pressed against the bars and kept urging them "Go on - do it!" probably ruined the mood. Plus, I don't really think the kids knew what "it" was. I said "Maybe they want some privacy." The little weasels ran off and got a box which they decorated with hearts. Over a heart shaped hole in the end of the box they wrote "Hamster Tunnel of Love. Maybe they did know what "it" was...

The hammies went in the box. Then back to the cage. Long story short - despite the kids' best efforts, Smokey conceived and gave birth to 12 babies three weeks later. Smokey was a great mom and didn't eat her babies. In fact, the only one she bit was me when I tried to comfort her. You know, mom to mom. Anyway, we were lucky as heck because we were able to line up homes for everybody. At three weeks old the little hams were old enough to go to their new homes and people came to pick them up. We'd decided to keep the one all gray one. She got her own little cage and we moved her into it

One person came to pick up with a broken cage so we gave them the one the grey hamster was in and put Little Gray in with her mommy. Just until we could get another cage. As soon as her daughter's tootsies hit the pine shavings, Smokey went into Vicious Attack Hamster mode and went for the young one's neck. Gray gave back pretty good, but she was way out-sized and nearly lost a back leg. She survived and we named the her Boo Boo.

And I came up with my theory that once a grown daughter moves out, its probably best for her to stay moved out. So nobody tries attack anybody else. Visits are great and I will really miss her, but I don't think I'll miss the part where everything I do is wrong. Makes me want to rip some body's leg off.

Normal as You and Me

I was reading a report about the abolition of gay marriage in Maine. What bugs the dickens out of me is that there are some people who seem to feel so smug about their "victory". I mean, these same people would storm the state capitol with pitchforks and flaming torches if their right to marry was rescinded (They would use these things because they are backwards people and they would employ backward ways.) And the weird thing is that they say they are "defending" marriage.

They are defending marriage by abolishing some of them. This makes as much sense as building a neighborhood by burning down some of the houses. I know two gay couples. They are both pairs of women. One couple is married and one couple decided not to bother. When the first couple got married, there was no earthquake, the sky didn't open up and the hub and I didn't suddenly have the urge to sever our relationship. Both couples have two kids, a pair of boys and a pair of girls. They are all fantastic parents.

They are good parents, not because they're gay. They're good parents because they spend time with their kids and teach them well. All four of these kids are smart and well adjusted. They go to school, play sports, have friends, and go to baseball games (my personal yardstick for good parenting). Golly, they're almost the same as kids of straight parents!

Both couples own homes, go grocery shopping, one of them attends church. They do yard work, attend kid's plays, go to work and host birthday parties. In a crowd, you can't pick any of them out as "the gay ones". What, then, is the difference between a gay couple and a straight couple? Well, the only difference seems to be very, very private.

Now, I have a lot of friends who are straight, married couples, too. The fact is, I don't know, care, have any desire to even think about what they do in their bedrooms. The thought of most of my friends and their hubbys naked gives me pause, and makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth. In fact, some of them might even do some of the same things that makes people go nuts about gays (heh-heh, I said nuts...) Why are these conservative weirdos who push the anti marriage laws so preoccupied with gay sexual practices?

I think they're perverse. They need to get their heads out of people's bedrooms and their own behinds and leave loving, committed people alone to live their lives as they see fit. Or we might confront them with pitchforks and flaming torches. If they can't understand love and commitment, maybe they'll understand that.

New Short Hair

I decided to get my hair cut short. Well shorter anyway. I really like Ellen Degeneres' hair in her Cover Girl ads so I decided to go for something like that. I confess that I like everything Ellen does and if I wasn't married and she wasn't married and I was a lesbian, I might have a real crush on her. As things stand, though, its just sincere admiration. But her hair is very cute. Really. And her ad is in every magazine I've looked at lately so I figured "No prob - I'll just go in show the stylist the ad and snip, snip - I'm done!"

I have been going to a very good hair cutter, but I made the mistake of announcing to the ether that I really like her work. Within days the place her husband works announced it was closing and she told me they were being transferred to L.A. I feel I must apologize to all the people at the NUMMI plant in Fremont - now where will our Toyotas come from? Sorry, guys - my bad...

Anyway, I went to my local haircutting chain and put in my name then I went to find the ad in one of the magazines they surely had there. Vogue, Alloy, Highlights and Glamor later - no ad. She called my name. "I'm looking for a picture!" I called out. "Check the style book" she called back and found it for me. Ellen was not in the style book. But there was a cut kind of like hers so I showed the stylist. "That's very short" she said disapprovingly. "I know" I said "I want it short like a boy's haircut". Boy's hair very short" She had some sort of Asian accent I couldn't place but it was heavy on skepticism.

I could have left at this point, but when I decide to get my hair cut - I have to get it done. Plus, I already had the drape on. I went back to the chair and sat down. Stylista put the picture on the counter and kept using it for reference. Razor cut, look at pic, razor cut, look again, scissor snip, look yet again. I kept an eagle eye on the proceedings. Well, I had my glasses off so my eye was somewhat less acute than an eagle's. Kind of like my dog who has cataracts.

Keeping the cataract eye in the mirror, I was surprised to see a shape I liked beginning to surround my head. Stylista had asked how I wanted the back and I nearly said "I don't know - you're the one with the license." (Where is that thing, anyway?) but I just said "Short." She kept snipping, whacking and looking and things were going pretty well, then she said "Want to see back?" "Yes" I said as she whirled the chair around and I grabbed my glasses. She handed me a mirror and I looked. I liked! Yay!

With my glasses on I even liked the front and I think she did, too. Now I'm home and I showered off all the little hairs. Its fluffy and short like Ellen's. But gray, not blond. Its cute,though. I discovered something about hairstylists today, though, I picked the one with the cute haircut - I would have been smart to pick the one who gave it to her. I got lucky and even though she didn't laugh at my jokes, (and therefore has questionable taste) she did what I wanted when she clearly thought I was an idiot. She was wrong but girlfriend can cut hair so I like her. Now if only I can keep her local and un-pregnant...Next time I'll take a picture of Ellen.

Poison, Yummy, Yummy Poison

We just got back from my sister's house where she tried to kill us. Here's the story: Our nephew's birthday was November 1 but that was the day after his 23rd birthday/Halloween party. Coincidentally, it was also Day of the Dead which suited the Neph's demeanor on that day. So we celebrated his birthday tonight and that's where the attempt on our lives happened. My sister served us really good Mexican food from a place in Hayward.

It was delicious, filling and it didn't need salt. By definition, this means the food was poison. The Hub and I have learned this in our Fat Camp classes. To wit; if food smells really good - its poison. If it tastes good-its poison. If it fills your belly and makes you happy- assume you've been poisoned. If it needs no seasoning at the table-its going to kill you slowly by attacking your heart. All fruit juice is poisonous because its fattening.

Here's the thing, all our lives, we've been told that food-yummy, yummy food is good for us. We were lied to. Most food is bad for us and its relative badness is directly proportional to how yummy it is.. Oh, sure, you won't die from eating lots of broccoli but you won't really be living either, will you? Carrots, too, plus they'll turn you orange if you're not careful.

Just 100 extra calories a day, over and above what your body burns will add up to a weight gain of 10 pounds annually. Over the years this can really add up. I know - I lost 55 freakin' pounds and the hub lost 65. That's a whole lot of food we didn't eat. And a whole lot I ate to get there! I have to admit, putting on all that flab was fun. A Mexican dinner or Italian dinner, or Chinese, or Thai, or American, or any dinner that tastes good, eaten frequently enough, is going to kill you.

I love Indian food. There's probably some that is healthy, but everything I've tasted is delicious (strike one), salty and spicy (strike two), and fried (strike three - you're dead). Every time I used to snarf down a somosa or a dosa or a guab jalomb, I'd wonder "Why are these people alive?" That's why I suspect I didn't taste the full spectrum of Indian food. The fact is there are lots of Indian people who are not only alive but look healthy. They must be hiding something...

So, I'm sitting here digesting my delicious poison dinner. I feel fat and happy and really,really sleepy. Tomorrow, its back to bland and fiber rich. Maybe I'll have a glass of wine before bed. No, I better not - that stuff'll kill you!

Cute Shoes / Cruel Shoes

What is it about cuteness? I mean it makes sense when we're talking about baby clothes and itty bitty shoes and sockies. Now those are so cute you could get a cavity. And little kid clothes are cute, too. Tiny little stubby pants and sweet tiny dresses are adorable, right?

I bought my daughter a dress today that is really cute. She is 24. The dress is adorable and with some colorful tights and a cute top, she'll be even more darling. Her clothes aren't stubby or itty bitty but they're still cute. When do we outgrow cute? I got a new sweater today that is...well...cute but that's OK because all my old clothes were so much bigger that my new clothes look little in comparison. So they're cute.

The sad thing is that my new bras are also much smaller than my old ones and therefore - cute. I hate that, and I can't store packs of gum in them any more. Plus, I have to find a new place to put my keys when I don't want to carry my purse and I'm wearing leggings with no pockets. Hey, it happens sometimes.

I also wore a pair of shoes the other day that I had owned for a long time, but never worn. I got them on ebay and they didn't fit when I got them but of course I held on to them. They fit now, and they're really cute, so I decided to break them in so I can wear them whenever I want. Now I have flayed skin on both my heels that even giant, super thick sports band-aids can't cushion. There will probably be scarring, but that will go with the scars I got from my birthday shoes which were really painful - but really, really cute.

I've gotta say that I do have teeny, tiny little feet so I wear very small shoes. So they're cute just by smallness default. Before I had kids, my feet measured out to a 4 1/2 E and once a shoe salesman measured them and actually started laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he said "You have no toes!" After I proved him wrong by kicking his ass, he sold me a pair of shoes. They were really comfy and so cute!

The Evil Empire II

Sitting here watching the Yankees throttle the Phillies makes me think about lots of things I'd rather be doing including, but not limited to: oral surgery, a colonoscopy, emptying my dog's anal glands, touching a worm...You get the picture. I really don't like the Yankees. Or the Dodgers. I think its attitudinal. As in they have a big one and it bugs me.

I guess if you make a living off your innate talent, you have to have a pretty high opinion of yourself. Especially if you are the best at what you do. Which the Yankees and the Dodgers are - darn it. I have a really good friend who is a gifted artist but she has no attitude. I think its because she doesn't sell her art. Yet. She's starting to get noticed up in Oregon in her town, though, and people are interested in showing her art. If she starts selling her stuff - I'll probably have to go up there and dope slap her. You know, as a friend.

I don't have a very high opinion of myself but I was getting an attitude one day. Driving to Big Lots, where I go frequently to replace my ear buds that the kitten likes better than anything labeled "cat toy". I was overcome with a wave of hatred for the people who took my job from me. Through my gritted teeth, I actually hissed "I hate them" as I was getting out of the car. Suddenly, I felt a big dope slap on the back of my head that nearly knocked me to my knees right there in the parking lot. I looked around and saw nobody standing there. I realized - it was God.

God was right there making sure I didn't get swallowed up in negativity. I didn't know God was a fan of the Stooges! And I know the old saw - don't spend time on hate - life's too short. Well, I've got lots of time on my hands, and nothing to do with it. It would be really easy to become a real hateful curmudgeonly, crabby old lady. God's just making sure I don't lose my nice self to my Yankees baseball player self which simmers somewhere below the surface.

Probably the Yankees are nice, too, if I got to know them. I would rather eat dirt but I might get surprised. You never know. Anyway, I'm thinking of trying to make a living by just my wits now so I'll probably get dope slapped again. Maybe more than once...

The Evil Empire

The Phillies just beat the Yankees in World Series game 5. I'm rooting for the Phillies even though they're kind of named after girl horses. I've always thought of them as the My Little Ponies of baseball. The Yankees are just so businesslike. There's no joyous abandon in their play. Its a job and they're good at it but they're not fun to watch.

Plus, have you taken a look at their pitching staff? Those are some seriously large men! Phil Coke pitched in relief tonight and he looks like he shops in the "husky" section at Sears. I think you can actually see C. C. Sebathia from space when he's on the mound. Its nice to know that you can eat ice cream and still play professional sports but he looks unhealthy to me. I like skinny pitchers like Tim Lincecum and Randy Johnson. Pitchers should look like scarecrows, With hats.

Catchers need to be chunky so they can block the plate. They need to look solid. Like anchors. Pitchers should be limber. Outfielders can be solid, but they have to be able to run. Same with infielders. The main thing is they should look like they're having fun. I saw only one smile in the last two games in the New York dugout. That was on Nick Swisher's face and I think its because he used to play here in California. I really wish Nick Swisher wasn't a Yankee because he's a really cool guy and a lot of fun to watch.

Anyway, the Series goes back to New York now. Now the Yankees will have home field advantage. They'll probably win. They'll jump around and spray each other with champagne and have a parade. Sigh. It will look like its supposed to look, but it will just feel wrong. Someday the Giants will win it all and they'll do it right!

Pithy Conversation

I have a Muslim friend. She's one of the smartest people I know and yet she has only recently learned to read and write. She was married to a complete jerk at 13 and became a mom to an angel at 15. She had two more terrific kids and divorced her lazy, jerky wife-beating asshat of a husband about five years ago . He went back to Afghanistan and she became an American citizen.

Sometimes we get to chatting and its usual girl stuff. How much she does/doesn't want to get married again, how far our boobs have sunk, how funny old men look naked (she takes care of a geezer and has to help him shower sometimes), our kids and, now and again, God. The really funny thing is that our respective religions are pretty similar in most respects.

I'm what you might call a confused Christian. She is very devout. She enjoys Ramadan primarily because she likes the religious aspects of it. But on a practical level, she always loses a few pounds and looks fabu! My friend has questions just like me and I find that very comforting because I figure if somebody as religious as she is can ask about stuff she doesn't understand - I'm golden!!!


The other day we were talking about my former place of employment (The Place Who's Name Must Never Be Uttered In This House Again) and she said. "I hate them, I don't even know them but I hate them" I said 'I can't seem to get past my anger - and you know, the Bible says we're supposed to be forgiving." She said "The Koran says we're supposed to forgive, too, but its like my stupid husband - I can't do it yet." I told her that I knew forgiveness would come but I can't just say it - it has to be felt. She said the same thing about her ex.

I just got wrongly terminated! She had the crap beaten out of her for years! This woman is better than therapy! I think I should get her a little stand like Lucy in Peanuts. She would so rake it in!!! We should also have a little restaurant on the side. That woman can do things with a kabab you wouldn't believe! I can make cookies. And tea...

Anyway, its great to have diverse friends. Sometimes we each have notions the other considers weird and I don't think she really understands my fixation with baseball, but for anything important the college educated, married woman born in Utah and the formerly illiterate, divorced Pashtun woman are on the same wavelength and its wonderful.

By the way, to all anti immigrant people in the word - She sent all her kids to college. Her oldest son is a computer dude, her daughter is a nurse practitioner and her youngest is currently battling health problems but he will get back to work as soon as he can. Her job? Housekeeper.