-
-
The Groups
A funny thing happened on the way…
Writing this super, crazy, no proof-reading fast as it is the first time we have had power in ages. I am sticky, gross, hot and have been sitting in the dark den for hours all alone with my over-active imagination. So today I am apparently 8 weeks you know what. And today I was supposed to have my big, fancy, everything is going to be ok, OB appointment.
Well that isn’t going to happen.
Everything is closed in this town. Things have been closed since Wednesday. Seriously- the entire town and county has been shut down and completely incapacitated by Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay. There is flooding and crazy winds and the inability to sleep because of giant branches slicing away at your bedroom windows all night. And the awful thing is that it is so so fucking HOT. Hot and humid and wet and gross. You would think standing outside in a crazy gale of wind would cool things off. Not so much. It is like a massive and epic hair dryer pointed down.
Have I mentioned that I hate being hot? Have I mentioned that I was supposed to have THE appointment this morning? Have I mentioned that I have had next to no sleep because of creepy noises, giant winds, sirens, and hot temperatures?
And I am so afraid of bad things. SO afraid that this delay just means that bad things are coming. And I am trying so hard to just be in the moment and not place some sort of stupid metaphor on a tropical storm…but the whole things sucks ass. Just in case you were wondering. I am a buffet of anxiety.
Open Letters
Dear NBC-
I have really been digging the Olympic coverage. Seriously good stuff. My beef with you is your horrible coverage of the gymnastics team finals. Yes, I am totally the gal that usually just watches gymnastics in the summer & figure skating in the winter. I do enjoy watching other sports- diving, swimming, even that Saturday boat race thing was cool. But honestly- I am all for gymnastics. Your coverage begins at 8 and ends after midnight. There is a brief break for local news and then usually there is continued coverage at like one thirty am.
That is a lot of air time.
Plus there is a time delay and space to do some editing.
So can you please tell me why the final team gymnastics showdown didn’t start aring until around 11pm the other night? And can you tell me why you aired over an hour of men’s beach volleyball BEFORE covering gymnastics? I mean I get that we are meant to watch ALL sports, but seriously. Men’s beach volleyball? Don’t you realize that there are little girls staying up late on a school night waiting for the good stuff? (and, ahem, 32 year old girls too)
I couldn’t stay up that late so I set my dvr to record things. And my dvr cut off right at midnight. So I never got to see the floor routines. I only ever saw U.S.A. and China do like 3 rotations. No other countries. What the hey, NBC?
Please fix this before the individual competition airs for gymnastics.
Thank you in advance-
A Gymnastics Fan
_______________________________________________
Dear Kraft-
I have been a long time lover of your mac & cheese box product. Seriously it got me through some tough times. I also am a pretty basic fan of crackers. When I heard that you guys were coming up with a Mac & Cheese Cracker I was interested. And then I saw your commercial and was very turned off.
In your ad you give an adorable kid a mac & cheese cracker and then they smile and appear to rise up on liquid yellow liquid stuff. I imagine you were going for some sort of visual on how profound the flavor is. It is so WOW that the kid is lifted up into the sky.
But I imagine if you put this ad in front of a test panel before airing it you might have found out that it looks more like eating the cracker gives kids the yellow runs.
Please fix this or at the very least please do not air the commercial on any channels that I watch.
Thank you.
_________________________________
Who is getting your Open Letter today?
Oh really?
Just hanging around on a Friday with GM. We are getting ready for a (rerun) of Martha and I am thinking about what to serve her for lunch. And then I am totally mesmaraized by a fall tv show promo on NBC. “Interesting”, I think. And then the tag line pops up, “It’s not tv. It’s birth control.”
And here is the problem; I can’t decide if I am offended or not. Am I? Are you?
For the rest of the story log in!
My local news station has begun doing something that annoys the shit out of me. And no, I am not even going to bring up the fact that the local gals are big fans of shirts in what I call “truck yellow” or the obvious animal print that pops up every other day. I will glass over the passion pink make up scheme and even the mid day news promos that feature perky gals exclaiming, “How what you are eating RIGHT NOW will kill your entire family- tune it at 5!” Because, really, doesn’t every local news station do some version of freak out news promos?
What has me all up in annoyance is the actual teaser while you are watching the actual news. I did my part. I dialed in at 5 and I expect to see the answers to what will kill me, in addition to a solid weather forecast that doesn’t just tell me what the temperature is at gold courses around the globe, and if you give me that I will allow you the 6 minutes you take to haul out a scruffy kitten and beg me to adopt it.
But what I won’t allow is for you to read me the news, have me all invested and shit in your in depth expose and then say, “To find out how this story ends log on to our website at www.thisainttherealnewssucka.com”. (made up website to protect the idiots)
When did getting actual news become such a damn chore? Even Reuters, a news site that I can usually count on, has my eyes bleeding from streaming videos and flashy commercials. Where do you go for direct, no crap, just news, news?
And when will the weathermen learn to use sunblock? You’d think they would know by now…
You know you are old when…
Actually I don’t logically think that I am old, but sometimes I hear something and I think, “holy shit! That was 20 years ago.” I know very well that 32 is not geezer level living. However there are at least 2 generations below me and I feel miles away from them.
I am totally a child of the 80’s. Yes I had a birthday party at a roller rink. Yes I wore ribbons in my hair. I had zippers AND Velcro on my shoes, slept on Sesame Street sheets, I begged for nail polish that could be peeled off, I freaked out about pop rocks, I saved my babysitting money for plastic charms like miniature toilets, I perfected the art of paint pens, lived in my keds, and thought Richard Marx was so fucking dreamy (shut up).
And the generations below me have their own rooted base of pop culture that will bond and unite them with their peers in a dorm room a galaxy far, far away. These kids will bond over the internet and tivo, cell phones and avatars.
But there is something that I keep hearing about the kids today and while it is vaguely a concept (is it a concept??) I can grasp I really don’t understand it. It gets referenced over and over again and I have nodded like I understood for too long to be able to ask out loud.
So I will ask you guys: Please tell me what it means to be emo.
Quick! In 5 words describe your 3rd grade self to me. I will save you a seat at the lunch table.
I feel you Anna Jarvis. I do.
Mother’s day, 2008. Mothereffing Mother’s day. The holiday that will always feel acidic until, well until it doesn’t. And here we are…full swing into it and so far it is just your every day Sunday around these parts. Things accomplished today: fed my cat (2 x’s so far), gave cat a bath (holy fuck! don’t EVER do that!), fed my Grandmother, gave my Grandmother a bath, worked on header art (check out the latest in the Header Art page above), and tried to look forward to tomorrow when the effing Mother’s Day advertisement would finally end.
So just who was the genius that came up with Mother’s Day? You might be surprised. I was. Her name was Anna Jarvis and get this: she never married and never had children. She actually created the holiday to commemorate the passing of her Mother. But two decades after the holiday was officially made a national greeting card bonanza Anna saw how bat crazy the day had become.
She then, with her sister’s help, spent the rest of her life and her entire inheritance campaigning AGAINST the holiday. She fricken hated it and spoke out every chance she got. “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!”
We get it, Anna. Some times the things we put into motion are never really as perfect as the original plan.
Home again, home again…
I am safely arrived at the hot, humid and holiday scented homestead. Yes I am pissed off to be wearing short sleeves after three weeks of LONG sleeves and fuzzy sweaters!
But I am home and being home is kind of abrupt.
I am not feeling very bloggy today.
Retail Meltdown
Friday night I had a meltdown in the dressing room of large and beautiful. I went to the store on a mission to find a few cute shirts for my trip and I was armed with a fantastic coupon that made me feel powerful and sure. I scoured the store looking for something that would be equal parts flattering and forgiving. Something that covered the sure to happen bloated gut of injectable medication and yet not radiate a 2nd trimester belly look.
SO SO SO many cute tops. And they all made me looked knocked up.
I couldn’t find anything that floated over my gut without looking like I had a fit pregnancy magazine rolled into my purse. And thus began my meltdown. Suddenly the dressing room was way too small, my feet started to smell and make me paranoid, the over head lights went onto full beam and I could feel perspiration in my hair. Nothing fit. Not a damn fucking thing.
So I did what any large and beautiful girl would do, I sat down on the provided square meltdown stool and cried. You know that private, silent cry that sounds like you are gasping for air but really you are just constricting your throat muscles so that the guttural keening sound that is clamouring in your esophagus doesn’t escape?
I cried so hard and so quietly that my eyeballs hurt. My new ZFM’s (zits from medication) began to throb and the stress of it all made me sweat down my legs in a way that made me pause to make sure I wasn’t pissing my pants.
Thankfully I was left alone to get the first phase of the meltdown out of my system. I was able to find a not so funky kleenex in my purse and blot away the beads of sweat on my face. I was able to reassemble all of the cute and ill fitting clothes back on their hangers, pop open the dressing room door and announce to no one at all that “nothing was what I was looking for.”
Thank you very much. I will just be skulking out of your store and rushing to my car where I will once again visit the ugly cry.
And just an FYI- the parking lot cry alone in your car is now my favorite cry. I had the doors locked, the radio turned to a sound muffling level, and plenty of unused napkin snot rags. Perfect conditions for getting it all out.
Sure, we could blame the meltdown on the wonky hormone situation in my body, we can blame it on stress, we can blame it on the size of my hips, but really I am going to place full blame on the current line at large and beautiful.
What the fuck, people? What is UP with all of the crazy tent shirts you are carrying now? Can’t I get a nice, tailored, button down/ Something with a little stretch, and maybe a little razzle-dazzle? And what is UP with all, and I do mean ALL, of the sleeves living in a 3/4 length world? And WHEN will you phase out the crop pant? I am a large and beautiful woman and I do not want any unnecessary attention drawn to the size of my voluptuous calves.
Shame on you large and beautiful. Shame.
When I came home GM & Mother were perched in the living room waiting to see my loot. They were very disappointed that a fashion show would not be happening. And I felt like such a loser for depriving them of the joy of seeing me look fabulous. heh.
Yesterday the panic continued. Holy Fuck- I have NOTHING to wear on my trip. Nothing. Well ok, maybe I could make do with some of the old t-shirts I have, but I wanted at least one fetching outfit to feel super cute in. And something tells me that it is just impossible to feel super cute in an over-sized purple t-shirt that is faded around the collar by the peroxide in my zit cream.
So I decided to do some research. Large and Beautiful certainly can not be the only game in town. I pulled out the phone book and scanned the list of retailers in the local malls. Then I saw it. Of Course! Initials One Cent! Certainly they would have a plus sized section. I called them up and was told that the store located in the oldest mall in town actually dedicated their entire upstairs to plus sized chicas.
Sweet!
So once we got GM tucked in to bed Mother and I went forth in the name of large asses to Initial One Cent. And people, let me tell you, score!
Sure there were racks upon racks of old lady pants (you know the flat front, elastic back, tapered leg, denim-esque fabric style), but there is also a plus size line at Initial One Cent that was so very adorable. And did I mention there was a huuuuuuge sale going on? There is way more in the store than is available on line and for the first time in ages I felt cute in a dressing room.
And the other women that were circulating the racks were so much fun. I don’t think I have had that much fun shopping in ages. We were helping each other out. Somehow, in a matter of ten minutes we all knew each other’s sizes and what we were shopping for. I was able to point an older woman towards the brown button downs and then a minute later a plus sized Mama with two adorable children in tow yelled out that she found me some sweaters. How kick ass are fat women?
I am so thrilled that I found some cute things and didn’t let the crush of large and beautiful bring me down. Yes I am larger than I want to me. I am larger than I was a year ago. But I am still me, I am still a girl that wants to look cute. I don’t want to be a wallflower in all black. And I won’t be.
The Pill is not my Hero
So you know how yesterday I was all bold by stating that I had not experienced any side effects from taking the pill? Not so true today. This morning I woke up with some crazy acne. Like weird cystic acne on my cheeks. Ouch. I am burning my face off right now with 15 layers of benzol peroxide treatment just hoping to make a dent. I also think I might be just a tad irrational with some pretty basic emotions.
Case in point: Mother has an out of town business meeting at the end of this week. She asked if she could take my car for the drive. My reaction? I burst into tears. And while I was crying I sobbed that I had no idea why I was crying.
I am going to blame The Pill.
Because usually I am just a sweet little cherub of emotions (heh).
So Heroes: I want to discuss, but I don’t want to spoil anything for people that have yet to watch last night’s episode. Let’s talk in the comments.
Annoyances: Television Edition
- Star Jones hosting anything. Especially annoyed by her hosting the New York City episodes of House Hunters. Cringe.
- Commercials that are insanely louder than the programs. GM & I like to get our Jessica on and watch back to back episodes of Murder She Wrote. The commercials are crazy loud. Jennifer Love Hewitt is screaming at me to use proactive. The old Surgeon General is yelling that we need life alert. Don’t they know that old people are watching Jessica and that chances are we have the volume just where we need it? Stop yelling at me.
- Animated promos/ads for other tv shows while you are currently watching a show. Do you know how creepy it is to be watching someone about to be killed and then an animated person walks across the bottom of your tv with a flashlight and tells you to watch The Closer? Seriously scary.
- Jon Stewart is on vacation. So annoying. Can’t he do a broadcast on location? Or just write the jokes & pay an intern to read them. So much is going on this week & I just find myself craving his perspective.
- Summertime tv is, for the most part, sucky. Now I will admit that I do have some favorites that are on this time of year- I love Top Chef, My Boys, Big Love and The Closer. I put up with Design Star, Kyle XY and Big Brother. But I am soooo ready for the new fall season. I check my tivo every day to see if they have any shows that I can set to record. Just knowing that something exciting is in my to-do is thrilling. What shows are you guys looking forward to?
At least football season is officially starting in our house this weekend. Seriously- that will thrill GM a million times more than Jessica, and we do love our Jessica.
Oh & you know what else happens this weekend? Or rather the monday following it? Labor day. Sheesh! How did that sneak up on me. As Ms. D was leaving today (woo hooo thursday respite! 2 hours reading a book at a café) she gave me a hug and told me to have a good holiday. How is it that August is ending & I had no idea. And please don’t tell me that all of my blog friends are going to be off vacationing with Mr. Stewart. While Labor Day will give Mother a 3 day weekend, really, for me, it’s just a monday with more housework.
-
-
Great Hosting By:
