Rambling

I have a stupid cold. My Army husband isn't home so the point of having one is absolutely POINTLESS. A cold, that is. I will tell you one thing: Cats just don't give a damn when you are sick. Nope. It's all about them. Scoop my litter. Change my box. Feed me. I had to order soup from a Chinese restaurant. I went on facebook and whined. Begged for attention, basically. Got some attention, but it wasn't as satisfying as having somebody to fetch your snot rags for you. Having a cold by yourself is just SO worthless. Outside of your immediate family, nobody gives a crap. I am almost out of food (Diet Pepsi and Baked Cheesy Poufs), so I need to haul my sorry ass over to the grocery store where I will get nada in sympathy. Just a cross look from the cashier that says "Get your germs away from me." Sure these are the same cashiers that sniffle and snort their way through the holidays expecting me to go "Oh, you poor thing. Having to work with a cold!" When what I am really thinking is: "Get your germs away from me!" Yeah, payback is a bitch. I'm thinking of giving this cold to the mailman, though. That guy's attitude has really been pissing me off. Do you think sneezing on a package would work? Or is there some federal law against that?

Tiger Tail

Despite the carefully constructed image of an all-around nice-guy, turns-out Tiger Woods likes his women "a little on the trashy side". Oh well. In his press-conference today, which was as dull as Tiger's former image,he asked to do his soul-searching in private. Tiger is taking the tried and true, re-hab, holistic-inner analysis route to repair things so MAYBE the public will forgive him and his wife won't take his sorry-ass to the cleaners. But wouldn't it be a lot more fun if Tiger would just embrace his inner-sleazeball and go with it? I kept picturing him getting a little trailer, right next former President Bill Clinton's Airstream, somewhere in an undisclosed mobile home park in Arkansas. What could be better for Tiger's image than tossing back a couple Buds with Bill on his astro-turf covered deck? When they both got bored, Bill and Tiger could just head down to "The Waffle House" and hit on waitresses. Look, Tiger is never going to live this one down, so I think it would just be for the best if he goes for it.

Visible Panty Line -- Friend or Menace?

While watching an "E!" special on the top "fashion don'ts" I was astonished to see that the number one "fashion don't" was VPL or "Visible Panty Line".  Personally, I don't mind seeing a little VPL.  I find it comforting to know that someone has enough sense to put their underpants on.  I think Brittany Spears was one of the first to shoot us the beav while getting out of the car.  Too much information, if you ask me.  Pretty soon, celebs across the world were forgetting to put on their underpants.  This is why so many of them have had to hire stylists.  They needed someone who says:  "Did you put on your panties?"  A whole industry has sprung-up around celebs not being able to dress themselves.  Celebs are not like us -- if they shoot the beav while getting out of the car they should at least have someone they can blame for the faux pas.  They are CELEBRITIES after all -- they have more pressing matters on their minds than underpants.  That is why they have "people".

Sadly, now that VPL is the biggest "fashion don't" ever, the line-free look has trickled-down into street-level wear.  The results have been tragic.  In the quest to remain VPL free I spyed a young, but large woman, wearing a pair of pants with the word "Juicy" predominantly displayed on the back of her ass while I was at the OBGYN.  The pants not only proudly displayed every wrinkle of cellulite this woman had, but her thong was on display for all too see.  The thong, instead of giving her the usual VPL had divided her ample behind into four separate entities, which for all the world looked like hot cross buns.  To make matters worse, she was at least eight months pregnant.  It was then I said a brief prayer thanking the good Lord that my mother never wore a pair of pants that said "Juicy" across the behind.

Now the male equivalent of the thong-on-display (TOD) is the pants-on-the-ground look which has already been so eloquently discussed by that guy on "American Idol".  I once saw a young boy, trying to look gangsta' by wearing his swim trunks swung low, expose his entire "bizness" when the trunks became water-logged and slid of his behind.

I have to disagree with my beloved "E!".  I find seeing a little VPL comforting, but then again I am prone to to wax nostalgic.

(And, I am not talkin' Brazilian...)

Color for Spring 2010!!!

"Color" is the buzzword for Spring Fashion 2010. Fashionistas couldn't get it together to pick just one color, so they are going with the whole spectrum. Apparently the recession has created a black and white world, much like the Kansas in "The Wizard of Oz". Spring promises to usher us into wonderful color, like Dorothy Gale stepping out of her depression era, crash-landed home into the technicolor world of Oz.

I am so sick of winter at this point I could just about kill for a shot of fuchsia. I am looking out the window at a pile of snow and my inner Scarlett O'Hara is crying out in disbelief: "Snow? In Atlanta?". The reversible brown coat I bought that seemed so perfect in the Fall makes me feel tired and depressed. I want to skip down the Yellow Brick Road with our friendly fashionistas, tour the wonderful green Emerald City and take a nap in a field of poppies. O.K., maybe the nap in the poppy field isn't such a good idea, and my trip to Oz was financed by some rather shaky financial maneuvers, but I am tried of Kansas! I want color, I want to skip down the road of financial frivolity and revel in the joy of color and credit cards!

Maybe I am missing something here, because Dorothy winds up pretty much where she started, in black and white, having learned her lesson. Oz, turns out, wasn't so fabulous. But, when push comes to shove, never underestimate the power of some seriously bitchin' shoes.

Donner, Party of Two

Once upon a time, I lived in Montana. It snowed there -- a lot. Unfortunately, the residents of the state had decided not to plow the snow off the roads. Federally owned roads got plowed, but state, county and local roads were plowed on a strictly hit or miss basis, and it was mostly miss. That's right: In an area of the country that got an average of over 50 inches of snowfall a year THEY DIDN'T PLOW THE ROADS. When they told me about the "no plow" thing, I thought they were kidding the girl from Florida -- but they were absolutely serious. The reason they gave was that the state had no funding. So imagine my surprise when I awoke one morning to quite an unusual racket, looked out the kitchen window and saw a freaking Zamboni scooting across the local park. The park had been magically transformed into an ice skating rink overnight. They couldn't plow the roads, but they had a freaking Zamboni.

I am convinced that the residents were in complete denial about the whole snow issue. Where as Southerners get whipped into a frenzy over a itty-bitty bit of snow, these people refused to acknowledge the harshness of the local winter. On a day when it was 27 degrees BELOW zero, the local children were outside waiting for the school bus. On Halloween it was three below zero, and we still got trick-or-treaters. The poor things would come to the door, lips blue, shivering, holding their little bags open, muttering the words "trick-or-treat" through chattering teeth. (You won't see any body in the South braving sub-zero temperatures for a handful of miniature Snickers bars -- and yet they think people in the South are stupid. Go figure.)

Bozeman Pass was a memorable experience in the dead of winter. One night when we were crossing the pass, the snow on the was packed down, as slick as could be, and you couldn't see a thing. There was no way to stop when my husband spotted the deer carcass laying in the roadway. The carcass slid under the SUV. I will never forget the sound of it scrapping the undercarriage. That poor, dead deer was frozen solid. Before I could even let out a horrified "Ewwww!!!" my husband turned to me and said: "Now I'm going to have to get the car washed."

Snowin' Down South

I have lived in the South off and on for the better part of thirty-some odd years. Certainly long enough to appreciate a well-formed, colorful metaphor -- such as "slap-yo'-mama good". This phrase is usually applied to food and means that something is so tasty you will go home and "slap-yo'-mama" for not being able to cook this well. I also know that if a Southern someone accuses someone else of being "very Northern" it is NOT a complement. It means that person has been pushy-rude and there ain't nothin' worse than being pushy-rude in the South. Surely, you could not be one of them, a Southerner, 'cause your mama would have raised you better. If you are ever called "very Northern" in the South, consider yourself bitch-slapped back to the Mason-Dixon line. However, I have never quite gotten used to the Southern response to snow.



Now, you may be saying to yourself: They don't get a lot of snow in the South, do they? No --but when the weatherman announces snow is on the way, you would think that aliens were about to descend from the sky. You see Southerners view snow as much like Sherman -- a wholly Yankee phenomena that just doesn't belong here. There are three phases of snow in the South: 1. The weatherman looks calm, still has his jacket on, but has suspiciously donned a woolly sweater vest. This means: Snow just might be on its way. 2. The weatherman has removed his jacket, is wearing a long sleeved shirt, tie and a woolly sweater vest. This means: Yes'sir-ee-bob and boy-howdy snow is on the way. Time to drive to the store for milk and bread. 3. The weatherman has rolled-his sleeves, is still wearing his woolly sweater vest, but has loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. This means: Blizzard conditions are in effect. There is at least a quarter inch of snow expected.



Driving through Peachtree City a good three to four days after the first scant snowfall of the year, I spotted a police car, hazard lights blinking, and some sort of utility truck in front of it. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the utility truck was in fact a salt truck salting a spot of road that had a patch of ice on it that was maybe the length and width of my automobile. I could have salted the entire patch by chucking a handful of rock salt out my window in passing. The amount of manpower involved in salting this puny patch of ice, not to mention diverting and closing a lane of traffic, struck me as being a bit of overkill, especially since it was sunny and fifty degrees outside. However, I kept this thought to myself 'cause my mama raised me right.