Scandal In Tampa Bay!

Scandal errupted in Tampa Bay this week as a suspicious photo surfaced of an unnamed army officer's wife -- one "J. Kelley" -- was spotted wearing what looks to be a garment known as a "Snuggie" and/or "Slanket" (which everyone knows is just a backwards bathrobe). 

Kelley swears she was just cold and it only happened once when her husband was away.  She denies rumors that she was also wearing a pair of lime green Crocs (which everyone knows should only be worn if one is gardening).  Sources close to Mrs. Kelley claim that she has fully disclosed her fashion faux paux to her spouse who goes by the suspicious codename "Bulldog".

Mrs. Kelley could not be reached for further comment.

 

Jo-Jo's Guide to Hurricane Categories for Dummies

As hurricane/tropical storm Issac looms somewhere off the coast of Florida, I feel I have a duty to inform the public of what those vague catagories of hurricanes actually mean.  Here we go:

Tropical Storm:  I can't believe this wasn't a named storm.  It was much worse than ___________ (fill in name of Category  1 hurricane back in ____ (year).

Category One:  I hope the cable and internet don't go down.

Category Two:  Oh, crap!  Not the cable, internet AND the electricity.  What is all that crap my neighbors have doing in my pool?

Category Three:  What is my neighbor's roof doing in my pool?

Category Four:  Oh crap!  We should have left town.

Category Five:  Write out your will and testimony.  Put it in a Ziploc bag.  You're toast.

Any questions?

Headless Random Fat Lady

O.K., I haven't posted in quite awhile in part because I have nothing to say.  The other part is,  Blogger changed their format and apparently I have to find my own pictures to post.  I am not a photographer and I started this blog because I like writing.  Like most middle-aged people who still remember punctuation and spelling, when I started this blog I had no idea how picture-driven blogging is.  If they are going to make me work this hard for something I am putting out there for free by doing something I don't particularly like to do it seems rather pointless.   Until this morning.

I returned from this morning's much hated walking to a televised news story on obese diabetics.  The good news is (even though I am not diabetic) that fat diabetics live longer than skinny diabetics.  Before I could smile acknowledging that at last there was some justice in the world. they showed some stock footage's of a fat woman.  You known the footage -- the one where they show the random fat lady with her head cut-off, like this affords her some sort of anonymity.  Dollars for doughnuts this lady knows who she is and when she is out shopping for plants at the Home Depot she probably hasn't planned on being on T.V.  They may think she won't care if here head is cut off, but you can put money on it, that lady knows who she is and she is probably none to happy to be the random fat lady for that day.

I want all my friends, family, enemies, T.V. producers and punk kids with fancy phones to know that NOBODY has my permission to use me as the fat example, headless or not.  I once saw myself in the security camera at the local Michael's and thought:  "Who is that fat lady with the flat butt?"  It was me.  I may never shop there again.  They don't have that thing at the front of the door so you can plan to glance down at the floor and miss the horror show entirely.  Nope, they have that thing hanging up in the middle of the store where you really don't expect to see yourself until you look-up and your sensibilities are assaulted in a guerrilla attack on your vanity.   If I wanted to concern myself with  that sort of thing I would go swimsuit shopping.

That's it.  I may figure this damn blogging thing out (again) or not, but I want it known that  NOBODY has my permission to use stock footage of me as the headless random fat lady.  Well, unless they plan on paying me.  They we'll talk.

Aunt Bea, Demi Moore and Me

It was no wonder that Demi Moore wound-up in the hospital now that fifty is the new thirty. The problem with fifty being the new thirty is that you're still fifty and being thirty when you are fifty is EXHAUSTING.

It used to be fifty looked a lot like Aunt Bea from "The Andy Griffith Show". My own grandma looked a whole lot like Aunt Bea. She had that figure where everything goes to the middle (as in "middle-age) and she wore those tidy cotton dresses and sensible shoes throughout the sixties. Grandma had a sweet face (like Bea) and soft white hair. Her house smelled like fresh bread, because she baked her own. She made quilts out of the fabric leftover from the tidy cotton dresses she sewed and could knit mittens for grandchildren without a pattern.  

Now grandmas aren't supposed to act like grandmas anymore. When we are over fifty and ought to have some sense, we are supposed to look like one of those women on  "The Housewives of Whatever" shows. Maybe it is just me, but I think those women look like a pack of ex-strippers. Who wants their grandma looking like that? I am glad my grandma didn't look like a former exotic dancer. Plus, all that teetering around on five inch heels makes me nervous -- someone could break a hip!

A lot of the media has latched onto this fifty is the new thirty-thing like it is the most wonderful thing ever. Not that there is anything wrong with trying to look nice, but if it involves a visit to the doctor's office you can count me out. It's not just that I loathe pain (I do), I don't think those women who get all that stuff REALLY look that much better. A lot of them wind-up looking kind of weird in a somewhat embalmed way.

Not that Demi Moore doesn't look damn good for her age (if not a bit thin) but you just cannot do the stuff you used to do in your twenties in your fifties.  Including Ashton Kutcher.   Listen, if  G.I. Jane can't handle the fifty is the new thirty thing without being hospitalized, I sure as hell can't.

I'm not resigning my standing hair color appointment, or throwing in the towel on the whole "Weight Watchers" business (although sometimes I want to throw the towel at that cute little Jennifer Hudson) and inhaling a pile of lard. I am not promoting pure surrender.  It's just if you are over fifty, cut yourself a little slack:  Relax.  It's O.K. to be older.  I may have traded-in capris with elastic waistbands and Birkenstocks for Aunt Bea's tidy cotton dresses, but like Aunt Bea, I worked HARD for the privilege.