Occasionally, I REALLY enjoy being a girl.
Sometimes, when your new retainers are killing you and you've been stressed out and you're crampy and irritable, the only thing for it is a nice lovely bath. One of these glorious fizzy bombs from Lush is the cure for what ails me. I recommend the Sex Bomb, pictured, or the butter ball, or Waving not Drowning, or read the ingredient lists to find one with a fragrance that rings your bell. Took a bath and got into nice jammies early Saturday night, then curled up on the sofa with a book under a quilt. Ah, deliverance.

Took my leetle doggie to the vet today to have her teeth cleaned, and ruh roh raggy - she had to have 3 teeth pulled. In dog years she's 72. Problem is, I don' t think we can go the denture route if she ends up losing all of them. I guess we'll start brushing them or getting them cleaned more often. Anyhoo, she also had a little cyst on her shoulder that had to be removed, and she's kind of groaning and twitching, so I've given her some pain medication. This is tough for me, because she is such a butch little thing that almost nothing makes her cry out in pain - not shots - not being stepped on - so I don't like seeing her in a diminished state. Hopefully she'll snap out of it quickly. I prefer seeing her as the little ball-busting bitch with the natural bulletproof spirit of tequila at half the calories. My kinda gal.

I get my retainers for my teeth tomorrow. The top retainer will have red and blue sparkle resin, and the bottom retainer will be baby-aspirin orange sparkle resin. The bottom will have a little penguin sticker embedded, and the top will have a pair of bunnies and a little pig. CUTE! Now I can mesmerize little kids by saying "I have a penguin in my mouth - wanna see?"

Babies and little bitty kids have always been drawn to me, for some reason. I think it's the shape of my face - expressive, big blue eyes- they do that to my dad, too. Then again, maybe me and my dad are so delighted by the sight of little kids that it's a mutual admiration society. Walking into Jason's Deli tonight, a newly-walking little girl in a bubble-suit teetered excitedly to the door and grinned at me like she'd been waiting all day just to see me. Her mother scooped her up even as she was still reaching for me. Then the little 2 year old in the high chair at the next table kept flirting with me and jabbering to me about her food. It was cute. I figure if little babies like you, well, you can't be all bad. I guess babies know fun people when they see them, and as I've said before, I'm always delighted to see someone who's willing to play along. Life is sweet!

Step away from the Kool-Aid, people...

I'd like to congratulate the 'tards of America who've been voting for that tone-deaf bumpkinette Kellie Pickler for finally coming to their senses and putting an end to rewarding her mediocrity on American Idol. After so many tin-eared performances in which KP sang nails-on-chalkboardingly-off-key (yes, it's a word, I just made it up) and the judges went on to praise her performances, it was simply too good to be true that she was upbraided by them two weeks in a row, and now she's OFF the show? Hallelujah. I'm thinking the romance is over between Simon and Kellie or sumpin'. Clearly, they started off listening to her through their beer-goggles. Oh, wait - that's Coke in their cups, right? Um. Right. Anyway, apparently AI judges confused bombing with da bomb. It's a fine line, but you can hear it after you clean the blood out of your ear canals.

Anyhoo, the blind Italian pop phenom Andrea Bocelli correctly guessed KP is blond. There you go. Perhaps the Lee Press-on Nail™ in her coffin was the woefully wrong choice of the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody, which is hopelessly dull, my darlings. I intercoursing HATE that song, and I chalk hits like that up to mass public pyschosis, honestly. Ew. Then she invokes "thayut pawtuhry seen in Gawust" which made me projectile vomit my Jason's Deli. Thanks bitch. No, really: thanks to my bitch, Valentine, who ate up my Kellie puke. Dogs clean up life's little messes. Vaya con carne, Kellie Pickler.

And speaking of colossal boners, in other gleeful celebrity-bashing news, Kevin Costner's in the hot seat for giving himself a happy ending after a massage at a Scottish Hotel during his honeymoon in 2004. I read this story as a blind gossip item, and -if I'm being honest - he's the first megawatt celebrity I thought of. I knew someone who worked in the film industry who said KC was notorious for using the same line on all the women working in production staff on films he worked on. He'd interfere with one woman for a few days or a week, and then toss her over as soon as some other hapless braintrust succumbed to his hackneyed come-ons. Oh, and apparently they were incredibly cheesy, lame pick-up lines, too. I guess when you're that rich/famous/powerful, it's sorta like being Brad Pitt or something - people don't put up much resistance no matter how stupid whatever comes out of your mouth is. Of course, "that depends on what your definition of 'is' is." Then again, I guess married Scottish masseuses with a bit of self-respect will put up a fuss. Good on the lassie, and I hope she wins her court case. And a big pack of sanitary wipes for her massage station. I guess now we know why they cut out his part as the corpse from The Big Chill, because coffins don't come with a pup-tent feature.

This morning I dreamt I was listening to an ipodish thingie and it started beeping over and over, and I yanked it apart, pulled the batteries out, smashed it with a hammer, threw it into a ditch and it never stopped beeping. Then an airplane sorta gently crash-landed atop the building next to me. Apparently I was dreaming but hearing my alarm going off. For 45 minutes. THAT, my darlings, is why my alarm is on the bureau across the room. I would hit "snooze" every 15 minutes for about 5 hours before I'd willingly get out of bed if I had the option. Maybe if I had a stinky rooster strutting around the place crowing and doing its best Mick Jagger impersonation, I'd actually wake up in the mornings.

Speaking of roosters, my mother-in-law is an adorable kook(when I'm in a good mood - when she's annoying, she's just a hare-brained bitch). She kept saying she was searching and searching for big ceramic hens for her new kitchen, but they HAD to be hens - not roosters. When we went over, she proudly showed us her first 2 big ceramic hens. Cockscombs? Check. Big, scrotum-like wattles under the beaks? Check. She was crowing about her beautiful hens. Why spoil her happiness by telling her her hens were hims? She is a very well-educated woman, but she has some of the most dingbat ways I've ever seen. She pronounces shrimp "srimp," but mushrooms are mushrooms. Go figger. More on her later.

Speaking of wack alarm clock stories. Waaaay back when I was mere child of 22, I got my first loft in Dallas with a friend. She worked in a salon and the door of a hip local nightspot, and she was always out all night and came home 3 or 4 am, plastered, with intent to get up at 7 am and go to work. Well, fine, whatever. Our loft was large, and my bedroom was a goodly bit away from hers, but you know how the sound of electric alarms carry in a big concrete box? Well, HER alarm would wake ME up and not her. I found this maddening. So, I did what any hapless kitten would do in that situation and used the only thing in my arsenal. She had a separate phone line from mine, and after her alarm had been going off for long enough that it was obvious she wasn't waking up, I would pick up the phone and dial her number. She would wake up and turn off the alarm for the phone. I'd quietly hang up on her and play possum if necessary until she left the loft each morning. Sometimes I would fall asleep before she left. She never knew, I don't think. Ah, those halcyon pre-caller I.D., pre-star-69 days! *snicker*

American Idol watch: Who Should Go Home - that tin-eared Kellie Pickler
Who WILL Go Home - immensely talented Elliott Yamin

Wow- now that terrorists are making bolder attacks on Arab communities like Egypt, maybe they'll pitch in and help put down the viper of Muslim extremism they've been nursing in their bosom these millennia. Neat!

Coyote Fugly.
I was flipping channels tonight and I came across a startling spectacle on CMT, a channel I never normally watch for any reason. Freakishly, my sister called a short while later and said there was a terrible mess on tv that I simply HAD to watch and it was the same thing. Kismet! What riveted my gaze so effectively was "The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search" which is a reality show of contestants vying to be the triple threat of a hot'n'sexay singing & dancing bartender who can make customers thirsty yet submissive. The winner will receive $25,000, and who knows what else? The CMT series is making stops in several US cities including Nashville, NYC, Austin and San Antonio for auditions.

On the NYC show, the hair-flinging girl in the top pic is dancing her little heart out, but she just doesn't quite have it. Rather pitifully, they keep doing the mini-interviews with the girls, and she seems to think she has it all sewn up - that she's the only one performing well. It's very through-the-looking-glass how like the Elizabeth Berkley Showgirls character she is, glazed-over with a naive desperation. I kept expecting her to take her top off at any moment, which would have improved my opinion of her, by the way.

Another standout moment of off-the-mark heartstring tugging was the girl who started crying because the story of the CU movie was just like her life story and her dad just died. Ew. Awkward. Nix on the sad story thing - her ass was cut from the competition forthwith, as she was a crap dancer. Thank you, drive through.

The people thinning the herd of auditionees kept talking about how there are no standouts in the audition- like no one is bringing anything to the table that is memorable. Maybe it's just that these girls only want the exposure of being on television (cue Cartman singing "I'm gonna be on television") to showcase their singing/songwriting talents, but they really need to do their homework and bring a little more than a pulse and a burning desire to the audition. What blows my mind is there is choreography they are taught and expected to perform from the movie - the classic Coyote Ugly dance, and these girls are having difficulty with it. No wonder these bitches seem apathetic - they have a primer available on VHS and DVD, and they didn't bother to bone up on it in advance? Well, they don't really look like they want it at all. Based on what I've seen so far, they need to give the $25 grand to some chick who already is working for Coyote Ugly instead of these lukewarm sorta-wannabes. I'll DVR some more episodes, because I feel I need to take one for the team and watch this mess, so you won't have to. Really, I'm thinking of you.

Burns, baby Burns. Disco inferno!

Dallas' new fire chief was announced this week. The dapper and handsome Eddie Burns of Fort Worth(LOVE the butch moustache) was the man of the hour. Anyone besides me think this is funny and kinda cute? Chief Burns. Like, wouldn't someone named "Dowser" or "Waterman" be a more apt choice for fire chief?

hugh over at gaping void is a brilliant cartoonist. Very clever chap, that. Anyhoo, Ted is a lot like my SanFran in-laws, so I thought I'd just continue with that theme for another day.

Want to catch up on a bit of reading but don't have much time? Go to the Book-A-Minute site and find out all you never knew you needed to know about the time-honored classics of literature, Sci-fi and children's stories. Makes Cliff notes look like dragged-out affairs.

Here's an overshare of my own. Things found embedded in my dog's poop - foil yogurt lids, condoms, assorted candy wrappers and my long hair (from when it was long, and even my medium-length hair these days). The hair thing is disturbing, because the poop dangles by a hair that is still ensnared in her entrails, and I have to grab a leaf to wrap around it and pull it out of her bottom so she'll stop doing the crabby squat-walk because she's freaked out that something is dangling back there. OK. Next time I'll get a photo for you. You'll love it.

I used to know someone whose Doberman ate his mom's Isotoner gloves. Isotoner used to give a guarantee that if your gloves ever wear out, they'll replace them. Well, when the mangled gloves came out the other end, she baggied them up and sent it to the Isotoner folks, who promptly sent her a new pair. Nice to know some people still take pride in their workmanship and in the quality of their products!

You've got to admit that all this stuff is WAAAAY more fun than stepping on a hairball at 3am on the way to the terlit.

Bit of housecleaning here. Haven't done that lately...

Wow, US Death rates dropping. And yet, from the same source last August, US Obesity continues to expand... from this can we extrapolate that the extra tonnage provides an insulating cushion from the Grim Reaper?

Hmm, how could that be happening when the smug gits like those who made "Super-Size Me" are working so hard to persuade us we've never been less healthy? I've been waiting for us all to start dropping like flies early because we haven't all signed up for sweat-lodge yoga and vegan diet bullshit. Could it be possible that Super-smug me is just a bit of hall-monitor-style condescension that is not borne up by facts? Tell ya what - let me know when the health disaster strikes. They need to get their story straight - I'm sick of the shrieking Cassandras in the media wanting to play the hysteria both ways. Tired, folks, just plain tired.

Took doglet to the vet today, and she's going in to get her teeth cleaned next week. I'm probably going to run down to the vet's office and watch the procedure. Hell, I've been enjoying her atrocious dead-fish product breath for long enough, I feel entitled to the jollies of seeing her enamel jack-hammered clean. Woohoo!

My job is tapering off a bit, which is good. I was already planning an exit strategy and this works out very well. Beginning May I'll work one day less a week, which means more time for making jewelry and more importantly, goofing off. Goof-off time has been in woefully short supply of late. Yes, I know I've blogged almost daily, but that falls under "public service" category, don't you think? Time to kick back in the pool, put on Jack FM and catch up on reading.

Tuesday is tv night for phlegmmy, as I hook up to the borg and mainline a grand snort of American Idol, then the delightfully sardonic House, with the capper of Boston Legal. The ONLY reason I started watching these shows (NEVER did before) is because I got DVR, which I know I have ballyhooed on previous occasions. The great thing is I can put them off until another day if necessary. I'm going to make American Idol predictions each Wednesday for the next few weeks. I'll predict who should go home and who will go home. This week provided the ultimate travesty - of 7 performers, Kellie Pickler was in the top 4 with her abortion of a rendition of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (from the musical Pal Joey - check out Ella Fitzgerald to hear it done up proper) which she had NO chops for, my darlings. Then she freaked out and started running for the barn, concluding her singing more than an entire measure before the orchestra. SOOOOO amateur hour. Frankly, I'm bewildered by her popularity. 10% what you say, 20% how you say it, 70% how you look when you're saying it. I guess AI audience is drinking the Kool-Aid.

Had Indian food for lunch, and was able to eat pakoras comfortably for the first time since July '04. Yay! I had to buy a baby Hello Kitty toothbrush because my gums are raggedy since they dremeled the resin bracket-holders off my enamel. Yeowch. I'm not being obsessive or anything. I've only flossed, like, 8 or 9 times since Monday morning. I heard a statistic once that the average USA usage of dental floss per capita is 12 inches. I was shocked it was such a short amount. Husband said my mom and I alone use 12 inches per year per usa citizen. wow.

I'll have to photograph my Nasturtiums, which are going bananas. They're amazing. I also got a great verbena I've been trying to find for years, and several varieties of Bee balm (monarda, bergamot) which is the herb flavoring of Earl Gray tea. It smells luscious, and the flowers are particularly attractive to hummingbirds. Garden is looking pretty swell, I must say.

Well, have a great Thursday, you sexy bunch of people!

I FEEL THE NEED - THE NEED TO FEED!

OK, we've reached fever-pitch in the celebrity crisis center when we've gone THIS far beyond The Emperor's New Clothes. Tom Cruise simply wasn't wacky enough when he threw a doo-doo hissy on Oprah's show. He had to go one step beyond (several steps, truth be known) and remove all doubt forever and ever amen. He's got some kooky ideers about how women should be doing the whole birthing thing, and well, that makes as much sense as me giving relaxation tips to a guy getting his prostate checked, but anyhoo... We'll see how long his relationship with the implantee lasts after his admonitions requiring a drug-free birth and a week of absolute silence during the baby's first week. Suggested baby gift: a magazine rack, because this child is going to have a lot of issues. Unfortunately, no such moratorium on pre-birth idiotic statements exists in the Scientology pedagogy, and Tom worked overtime to persuade us that he is more than a whole bubble off plumb, disgorging that he intended to eat the placenta of the newborn. (Here are some placenta recipes I found online along with handy tips for preparation. I know. On the same site there are the rules of placenta etiquette - use the seafood fork on the right, and it's considered the height of rudeness to eat the umbilical cord before the chorion - who knew?!!! This website knew. I expect you'll all be thanking me for saving you embarrassment down the line, but no need - I'm just helpful that way.)

Here's a little tip for you, Tom-boy - that is what we in the business call an overshare. By golly, eat whatever bodily waste you see fit -- toenails, boogers, pet dander-- but for goodness' sake, please don't tell us about it.

I considered (boy, how I considered it!) posting a placenta photo on my blog, but by golly, there's enough ugliness in the world already, innit? Nothing can wash away the bitter tang of celebrity idiocy faster than a turbo-dollop of cuteness, which I have courteously provided.

Just remember as the winged monkeys swoop in, there's no place like home. Poppies! Poppies! Poppies!

My braces, she is off today. Getting the damned brackets snapped off was weird, but the absolute worst thing about it was the dremel tool they used to grind the messy resin bits off the surface of the teeth. Drool ran down my cheeks and onto my neck. Braces are a pain in the ass to get on and to maintain, but the dremel heating up the tooth is brutal. I've never had a cavity, but I now understand people who are horrified of dental procedures. Tooth pain is the WORST.

I'll be checking in later and posting at length about Neko Case's phenomenal show at the Granada Theater in Dallas last night. Her voice is astonishing, and it was a fun crowd. If I weren't so wiped out from last week's travel, I'd be going to hear her in Austin tonight. Alas, maybe I'm getting old, because common sense is ruling the day and my butt is staying in Dallas.

A meme of fours...
The immaculate Tam over at View from the Porch threw this meme my way. I've never done one of these before, even though my friend Kim at Little Somethings tagged me once a long time ago.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1.) Snow cone technician
2.) Proof operator - banking
3.) Letter sorting machine operator US Postal Service
4.) Neiman-Marcus sales (spent all my money at my job, happily so)

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1) Bladerunner - Brilliant realization of a brilliant book - no small feat
2) Withnail and I
3) The Edge
4) Enchanted April

Four websites I visit regularly:
1) Tam's View from the Porch
2) Ben's Daily Review
3) Life on Earth and Other Accidents
4) Little Somethings

Four of my favorite foods:
1) a very fine cut of beef, tender and mooing. Again I say knock its horns off and wipe its ass and I'll declare it table-ready
2) sushi
3) Grandma Smith's green beans and fried potatoes
4) Grandma Kent's buttermilk biscuits

Four most wonderful places I've been:
1) Chiracahua Canyon in SE Arizona, early in the morning as the sun warms the sages and the fragrances come alive. Enchanting
2) Monument Valley Arizona/Utah
3) Isle of Skye and the Highlands of Scotland, during the bitter cold of winter - nothing matches this desolate beauty
4) State Highway 7 in Arkansas, particularly around the town of Jasper

Four songs I could listen to every day:
1) "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" Nina Simone
2) "Grace" Jeff Buckley
3) "Pocket Full of Change" Rain Tree Crow
4) "Teardrop" Massive Attack

Four people I'm tagging:
1) Ian at the Bungee Venture
2) lj at Life on Earth and Other Accidents
3) nongirlfriend
4) kim at Little Somethings

The Art of Ugly Americanism

According to this article in the UK's Telegraph, the US State Department is issuing a broadsheet with tips for Americans to be less ugly overseas. I contend that if we celebrate the culture-crushing idiocy of television like "The Amazing Race" which is all about showing our asses overseas, then there's no use pretending we weren't raised in a barn.

This is a show in which (I've only seen snippets) several American couples are plopped into strange environs (Calcutta, Lima, Moscow) with very little money/resources/no language skills and told to get from point A to point B by any means necessary. Mayhem ensues! The idiotic "heroes" are then filmed as they fight with each other, insult the locals and basically chew the scenery in their path (watch as they gleefully stiff the local cab drivers!) in their effort to win what I assume is a large cash prize.

Well, shit, people, if we treat the world as our own personal theme park, what else can we be called but ugly? This is a celebration of shamefully bad behavior. My opinion is that if you are decent to and respectful of other people, you needn't waste time worrying what they think of you.