Two Things

OK, you Blog Explosion types, listen up. This blog is not that lame, so for Pete's sake, will you give me a break on the Battle of the Blogs? I have this cute Felix the Cat design and I use my spellcheck, so once in a while, could you please vote for me? Because my self-esteem is going down the toilet.

Also--everybody should check out this week's tenant, Reluctant Housewife. This time I waited until I had 20 bids before selecting her blog. Think of me as your blogging personal shopper and go slip it on. It's quality reading. Reluctant Housewife is funny and thought-provoking and her blog has a great, clean, stylish look. And she's from Boston, so I get to call her blog wicked pissah. So click on it, OK?

It's ovah theah! <--------- C'mon, click on it, for frig's sake!

If I'm fat, this must be Tuesday.

I should have made pancakes for breakfast. It's traditional. You know, the old Shrove Tuesday pancake supper church fundraiser?

What--you don't know? You've never been? You have missed much, my friend.

See, you're supposed to be having a last minute pig-out before you start your 40 day Lenten fast. Some people celebrate Fat Tuesday in New Orleans with Po Boys and Hurricanes (wonder how many of those they'll be selling this year ...), and Swedes apparently eat these amazing almond-paste filled buns, but my people do it via a huge pancake supper where we supposedly eat up all the eggs, milk, bacon and sausages we won't be eating during Lent.

This year for Lent, I'm giving up white flour and everything made with white flour. Now that's sacrifice, people! Before two days are past, I expect to be begging Satan to come over and turn some stones into bread, as in "Pretty please, Mr. Lucifer, sir, I would kill for an English muffin."

So--because I forgot all about the whole pancake Mardi Gras thing until after I had already eaten my usual heath-nut bowl of whole-wheat Wheat Chex, I ate an Oatmeal Scotchie cookie for dessert. That being the most junky, buttery, sugary, white floury thing I could find in the house. Oatmeal Scotchies are the tools of Satan. They are the uber-unholy. And if you don't believe me, read this.

Now ... what naughty thing can I have for lunch?

Paragraphs? We don't need your steenking paragraphs!

Actually, it's more like: we can't keep a coherent thought in our head. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that our brain is mush.

Therefore, instead of writing some sort of reasonably pulled together entry, I'm resorting to numbered lists. Yes, again.

Why My Brain is Mush, by Poppy

1. Too much culture-vulturing this weekend. Romeo and Juliet at the Joffrey Ballet (for those of you keeping score, even though it's an adaptation, guess what? R&J still die.) Saturday night was Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Dibdin's The Lock at Chicago Opera Theater. No, I'd never heard of Dibdin either. The Lock was almost completely lame, but the Purcell was pretty good. Except what's with all the humping? Why are opera companies always trying to embarrass me?

2. Sister-in-law visited this weekend. Much chatting. Brain = mush.

3. Today was Girl Scout's "Thinking Day." This is a day when Girl Scouts and Girl Guides the world over learn about other cultures. And eat other cultures' food. And, apparently, all do it in the same ballroom in Wilmette, Illinois. My God, it was LOUD. 450 girls + 75 leaders = my brain is mush.

4. I love that Stud Muffin I Married very much, but that is some loud snoring I'm listening to right now. If my brain weren't mush, I wouldn't be able to hear myself think. As I'm not thinking anyway, it doesn't really matter. I still might throw something at him wake him up nicely and ask him politely to stop.

5. On the other hand, I could just go to sleep.

Bawn and bred in the briah patch

Swiped from Badger:

You Are Boston

Both modern and old school, you never forget your roots. Well educated and a little snobby, you demand the best. And quite frankly, you think you are the best. (You're right.) Famous people from the Boston area: Poppy, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Jack Lemmon, Aerosmith, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sylvia Plath, The Cars, Jay Leno, Paul Revere, John F. Kennedy, Conan O'Brien, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Edgar Allan Poe, and The Red Sox

What American City Are You?

Show and Tell Thursday, a/k/a Deal a Meal

Blackbird's timing is exquisite. She wanted a picture of a meal, and That Stud Muffin I Married was home for dinner for the first time in about three weeks.

Otherwise we would have been in the kitchen. Eating something kind of "meh."

But here we are in the dining room. There's my son. Isn't the expression on his face heart-warming? To me it says "There goes my weird-ass mother taking a picture AGAIN, but it's cool. We have steak for dinner."

The Zyliss cheese grater (just north-east of my husband's fingers) is my favorite kitchen appliance. We use it nightly. Blessed are the cheese graters!

Tonight's dinner was broiled New York strip steak, buttered brussel sprouts, and plain old spaghetti with nothing on it but olive oil, but with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese for those who like it.

Except that my daughter, who has decided she doesn't like steak or brussel sprouts decided to have a hamburger with a side order of broccoli.

Personally, I don't think that there's that much of a difference. Red meat and cruciferous vegetable v. red meat and cruciferous vegetable? Maybe I'm missing something.

I set the table (and did the dishes) and TSMIM cooked.

Oh, and please notice the chairs I eBayed for an amazing price. I got a mahogany table and six chairs for $220. I still haven't taken the plastic off the upholstery. I know plastic slipcovers are all kinds of tacky, but removing slipcovers takes effort, whereas leaving slipcovers in place is effortless. Somebody needs to put some pressure on me or those chairs might never get out of their rain ponchos.

P.S. I just clicked on the pictures and noticed the amount of ketchup my daughter put on her hamburger. It's astonishing. I'm surprised bottles of ketchup don't run away screaming when they see her coming. The upshot? Those plastic slipcovers are only coming off when she eats hamburger with ketchup, and not the other way around.

It's not a bug; it's a feature!

So I've been using the Firefox browser for a while now, because it offers "compose" mode here in blogger, and it keeps multiple tabs open, and all the cool kids are using it, so who am I to argue, right?

Except there's a built in search thing in the url bar. You just type in what you're looking for; no tedious heading over to Google or Yahoo (my search engine of choice, as if anybody cares.) That seems nice enough. The problem is that sometimes the program just goes ahead and opens the website it decides is the one you really want. Except that oftentimes, it isn't.

Like today. Today I was searching for some clip art. I decided I wanted to dress up my recipe blog a la Susie Sunshine or Penny Pressed--with some adorable vintage-looking pictures of housewives--ideally, adding cans of cream of mushroom soup to anything that will sit still. Which believe it or not, is pretty much the subject of my recipe blog.

So I typed "vintage housewife pictures" into the Firefox url bar.

And? A whole page of erect penises and shaved pussies shows up.

If you're running Firefox, you might want to give it a try. Go on, now. I'll wait.

Back already? So tell me--did those housewives look vintage to you? Because I thought they looked extremely up to date.

Men at Work: The Rant

Welp, another weekend is over, and the kids are back in school. Finally.

So here I am in my nice quiet house.

Quiet, that is, except for the incessant banging noises emanating from whichever house on my block is having construction done to it.

This is nothing new, of course, because construction noises have been the soundtrack of my life since we moved here. From where I'm sitting, I can see the six houses across the street. In eight years, five of them have undergone major renovations or additions.

Only one house has been left alone, the one belonging to R. and P. Naturally, R. and P. are my favorite neighbors. While we've lived here, there has not been a single Porta-Potty parked on their front yard. This may well be a record for the neighborhood, and, as a token of my esteem, I'm going to leave them a basket on May Day. It's the least I can do to express my appreciation.

But to make up for R. and P., I have neighbors who are constantly tweaking there house. It's the Jocelyne Wildenstein of houses. Apparently the owners' quest for the ultimate in McMansionification will never end. So far they've added a new entry, a three-layer stone and brick facing (in different shades of beige and brown so that the house resembles a gigantic German chocolate cake) dormers, columns, a new roof, Botox, microdermabrasion, collagen--it's basically unrecognizable as the boring "Colonial" it once was.

More proof--if any is needed--that I'm in an evil humor today? I typed all that in, even though I'm 90 percent sure that we'll be joining the addition/renovation crowd this summer. And that we'll probably be screwing up local traffic patterns and blighting the landscape with Ye Olde Porta Pottyes and dumpsters for months and months and months. Heh heh heh.

Serves them all right for torturing me all these years.

So ... speaking of hammering ... here's a weekend update. Aside from Saturday night's Loud Dinner Party, (where I got hammered--get it?) not much happened, mostly because my husband spent 8 or 9 hours every day at the office, so basically, who had a weekend? My children, that's who.

The cry went up: "Woo hoo, let's watch Saturday morning cartoons! And play GameCube! And hit Mom up for comestibles every two hours! And refuse to get dressed until lunchtime! And refuse to go out anywhere at all! Not even a toy store! Or McDonalds!"

And Mom, because she was TIRED because her husband has been OUT OF TOWN or AT WORK for WEEKS now had no powers of resistance and went along with this extremely boring plan. So Mom sat around and played with her laptop. Mom read every blog out there. Yes, yours. And yours, too.

Thank you for keeping Mom out of trouble during the longest four-day weekend in history.

But now! The children are at school! And no one will bother me for hours! The phones won't even ring! Because I just ripped them all out and flushed them down the neighbors' Porta-Potties! Yay me!

So how was your weekend?

Still nothing to see here, folks.

I still don't have a lot to say--although my hangover is much better, thanks--(The Asian Lep nailed it when she suggested eating bacon)

because

a.) I haven't watched the winter Olympics

b.) I don't care about the Texas Hunting Rifle Massacre

and

c.) I don't care that a lot of people appear to want to kill each other over whether a newspaper does or does not print various infamous editorial cartoons.

Sometimes the talking heads on television talk just to talk, you know?

Not to mention bloggers.

But not Poppy.

Nothing to see here, folks.

This morning I woke up with a vague feeling of malaise--a sense of something not quite right about the cranium. Cotton mouth ... headache ... total lack of appetite ... even more desire than usual for vast amounts of caffeine.

The hell?

Then I remembered. This is what a hangover feels like.

Last night we went to my friend Liz's semi-annual Loud Dinner Party. She invites all her loudest girlfriends (big surprise that I was invited, right?) and their much quieter husbands and has a big gumbo dinner. There were fourteen of us there, and I happen to know that we killed over two magnums of champagne. Before dinner. And then had wine with. And then there was the port afterwards.

This morning I'm guzzling a lot of tea. And reading blogs. Be gentle with me, please.

Rent Berries? Who ever heard of a Rent Berry?

OK, so pardon me for being childishly excited over seemingly unimportant things, but I whored out my blog again over at BlogExplosion and another bidding war ensued. Which made me feel so popular, I may wet myself.

(A better, more mature person wouldn't get so excited over trifles, but this is my blog, and I'm writing about myself. )

Before I review Snozzberries?? ... Who ever heard of a Snozzberry? I have to give a special shout out to last week's tenant, Stephanie of Mystikal Incense and More, and Chatty B. Tawking of Watchu Tawkin Bout. I really like both blogs, but Mystikal Incense was last week's tenant, and Watchu Tawking About is already on my links list. I figured if I was whoring my blog, I needed to spread my legs the love by picking someone different. But Chatty and Stephanie, keep me in mind for future rentals; I plan to be a ruthless slumlord and kick C-8 out--maybe into a howling blizzard--in less than a week.

And now for a review. I'm going to confess something here; something made me think this blog would be kind of cutesie. I guess the berries part of it. But! You will be glad to hear that "cutesie" is the last word I'd use to describe Snozzberries.

The design is amazing--midcentury modern wallpaper and a cute lil retro robot. The links are great; the writing is sharp and funny; and the entries are pithy. (I.e., short, in case, like some people, you like to write epic but like to read lyric. Me, I like to wallow in other people's verbiage like a warm bath. It saves water. But I know this isn't to everyone's tastes. You shower-taking, attention-deficit bastids. )

So anyway, do yourselves a favor and check out the great C-8. And then--take a bath. Could it hurt?

Enlightened Self-Interest: The Play

The scene: Poppy's house. Morning. There is no school today. Poppy is comatose, only to be awakened by her daughter thumping into her bedroom demanding

Daughter: "Where's Daddy?"

Poppy: Maybe he's in the kitchen

Thump thump thump down the stairs; brief pause; thump thump thump up the stairs.

Daughter: He's not there. Where is he?

[Then follow a few more suggestions on Poppy's part and a lot of thumping to and fro on the part of the daughter.]

Finally the daughter gives up and heads offstage into what appears, from the books and toys strewn all over the place, to be the door to her room. Poppy gets up and fetches a cup of tea from off stage left. She gets back into her bed and opens her laptop.

Poppy's son enters left, heaves himself up onto her bed, and begin to blather.

Son: Blather blather blather Harpo Marx blather blather blather Pokemon blather blather blather Look, your laptop screen is still broken blather blather.

Offstage, Poppy's daughter is heard to cry joyously:

Poppy's daughter: Daddy! Where have you been?

That Stud Muffin Poppy Married: In the basement.

TSMPM enters left and climbs into bed. Mumbles something about going to work.

Poppy: Isn't there anything you can do from home?

TSMPM: Well, I could download a couple of documents, and work on them.

Poppy: Well, why don't you stay home, then? You just finished a trial, you know. You usually take it a bit easy the day after a trial.

TSMPM: You're right. I can work from home today.

Above Poppy's head, the storm clouds change from dark gray to light gray to white with touches of pink as light bursts through. A chorus of angels begins to sing.

Last chance!

My first week as an Evil Landlady is coming to an end. So if you haven't already, please click on the thumbnail to your left--Stephanie's Mystikal Incense and More blog. She's posted the results of her Valentine's contest, and good reading ensues.

And you people who are using the blogspot template? Let me take the opportunity to remind you that Stephanie charges extremely reasonable prices for templates. Not that there's anything actually wrong with using the boring, ugly-ass, same-old-same-old standard blogger templates, of course. But you might want to think about upgrading.

I don't like to blow my own horn ...

... but I'm happy to let someone else do it.

So check out what Gary said about me. Check it out!

Go ahead--click on the link.

Nothing to see here, folks. I'm just sitting here acting modest.

And failing.

All you really need to know about me.

I'm not a morning person.

I'm so not a morning person that That Stud Muffin I Married (who is a morning person and awakens spontaneously at El Cracko del Dawno) does everything he can to avoid awakening me until he absolutely has to. Even then, he usually approaches the bed on tip-toe, breathing as quietly as he can, and bringing a cup of tea to appease the angry goddess.

But lately, TSMIM has been way busy with a trial, and this week he's out of town. So I have to get myself up, via alarm clocks and clock radios and such.

So yesterday morning I woke up to the clock radio playing All Things Considered or whatever the morning news show on National Public Radio calls itself. (Sure, they announce the name, but I'm comatose when that happens, so excuse me, I can't remember.) Usually I lie there listening to the news feeling like a hermit crab who has been forcibly evicted from the shell he's been renting, tossed around roughly by a Category 3 hurricane, and left abandoned on a rocky, cheerless shore.

But yesterday morning the first thing I heard was that the Vice President of the United States had shot some elderly Texan attorney while they were out hunting.

I burst out laughing. I laughed so loud I woke up my children, who, unaccustomed to displays of merriment from their mother so early in the day, came to the doorway of my bedroom and wondered aloud at the source of such undue mirth.

I tried to explain the joke: "Well, Vice President Cheney was out hunting ... in Texas ... with this other old white guy ... they were probably dressed in those doofusy hunting togs that are printed with leaves and bark and stuff ... and the old white guy went into the bushes to flush some quail or something ... and the Vice President shot him in the face with a load of buckshot ... BWAHAHAHAHA!"

My kids stared at me, puzzled.

At times like this, I wonder--again--whether I brought the wrong babies home from the hospital. I know it's not likely to happen--especially twice--but honestly. Have you ever seen those catalogs of equipment for hunters? Can you imagine a fully-grown man swaggering through the brush, dressed up as a tree, speaking softly (yet carrying a big gun) and peppering his pal (and probable political supporter) in the face with buckshot? And the perp is second in command? A heartbeat from the Presidency?

Either it's funny or it's tragic. I choose to laugh.

p.s. OK, I heard about the other guy's heart attack, and it isn't as funny anymore. All right? I mean, I'm not completely depraved. Just slightly.

St. Valentine's Day stats

Cookies baked: 84
Valentines assembled: 46
Parties attended: 1
Compliments upon new red suit received: 5
Uncomfortable pointy-toed shoes worn: 2
Cups of tea drunk: 1
Tea sandwiches consumed: 2
Glasses of champagne swigged: 1
Roses received: 12
Chocolate received: 0

About that last one?

Heads.
Will.
Fucking.
Roll.

They can give him a ticker tape parade, for all I care.

For the record, I couldn't care less that Ira Glass is moving to New York. A few Chicago bloggers are wringing their hands over it, but not Poppy.

I listen to WBEZ quite a bit. I've even been known to give them money. But I never listened to his show. Not once.

Why not? Well, among other things, I think all the National Public Radio programming that originates in Chicago pretty much sucks. (How in the hell "848" stays on the air completely eludes me.)

(Come to think of it, the vague titles of NPR shows annoy me. "848." "Odyssey." "All Things Considered." What the hell are they supposed to mean? Give me a strong title that means something. No, not "The Opiate of the Masses." What the hell is that suppposed to mean, anyway? No, I like titles that are succinct and to the point. Like "Car Talk." Or "BBC News.")

But let's think about the title of Glass's show, shall we? It's called "This American Life." Not "This Chicago Life." As long "This American Life" originates somewhere in America, it's OK with me.

And this touches on radio's peculiar magic. Radio is disembodied sounds. Radio can be from anywhere. So who gives a shit where the broadcasts originate?

But is it too much to ask that the quasi-magical disembodied sounds carried over the radio waves be pleasant? You know that expression "He's got a great face for radio?" I've come up with a variant on that--"He's got a great voice for silent film." If D. W. Griffith ever comes back and wants a new leading man, have I got a guy for him. Ira Glass has easily the worst voice on NPR, which is saying a lot. He can't pronounce the letters R and L, so it's "Iwa Gwass on This Amewican Wife."

And people are actually going wanh wanh, because their favorite Elmer Fudd sound-alike is moving to New York?

Bah, humbug. New York can keep him. And park him right next to Johnny Damon.

Correction, that's Socialist and She-male.

Schmutzie just posted a link to the sexual averages list.

So of course, I hurried over there and checked it out.

What did I discover? I discovered that while my hips and thighs are female, and my bra size qualifies me for inclusion in a highly-exclusive club, as only 3 percent of women attain it,

My height is male.
My weight is male.
My chest measurement is male.
My waist measurement is male.

Well. Imagine my shock and horror. It's not every day that a mezzo-soprano, mother of two, and alumna of two all-female schools discovers that she is actually a trannie with the kind of implants you usually only see on the likes of Pamela Anderson.

Comrade Poppy?

You scored as Socialist. Anarchism 75% Socialist 75% Democrat 67% Green 58% Communism 25% Fascism 17% Nazi 0% Republican 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

There's nothing I love better than a good political insight.

Unfortunately, this isn't it. Anarchist? Socialist? As if!

I mean, really, my good man.

You're not likely to find me sporting false whiskers a la Bingo
Little in a P. G. Wodehouse story, standing on a soap box in
some park or other, bemoaning the landed aristocracy's
mistreatment of the struggling underclass.

Or lobbing molotov cocktails into DAR meetings or PTA bake sales.
And that's "Mrs. Buxom" to the socialist likes of you.

On the other hand, it is with a huge sigh of relief that I discover
that I'm 0 percent Nazi. Not to mention, 0 percent Republican.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. I finally get to be evil.

Hey, I just got my first tenant from that Blog Explosions "Rent my Blog" thingie. I'm a landlady. An evil one.

This blog renting thing is so cool. You join Blog Explosion, start collecting credits, and pretty soon you can swank around renting places on other people's blogs. You can get other, more popular bloggers indebted to you, which means that you can make them pimp your blog for you. Sweet!

And, when you let Blog Explosion know you want to rent out your blog, it's this huge popularity contest that allows you to relive high school! You submit your blog and wait ... wait ... wait ... trembling ... for an offer. At least, if you're like me. I sat around moping and feeling loserish, wondering "what is it, my breath?" But then! When I finally checked back at the Blog Explosion web site, I had 16 offers.

It's enough to make a girl feel popular.

Even though I think I'm popular because I'm a cheap date. ("Only 20 credits!" she added, to no one in particular.)

OK, enough about me and my "I never got invited to a prom" angst.

This week's blog is MystickalIncense. Since this was my first tenant, and I got to pick and chose between 16 suitors, it had to be quite a blog. After all, I was popping my blog-renting cherry.

Well, it is quite a blog. Stephanie is a work-at-home blogging wiz. She sells crafty things on her blog, she designs blog templates, blinkies, banners, and sigs (cheap!)¹ she runs regular contests, and once a week, she reviews blogs.

So anyway, MystickalIncense has something for everyone; sharp writing, great design, and the bitches at I Talk Too Much gave her four smacks!

(Oh, and the fact that I emailed her yesterday and asked her to review my blog didn't affect my judgment at all. Swear.)

Check it out, and tell Stephanie I sent you.

¹Not that there's anything wrong with using a standard blogger template. I'm just saying.

Everyone Says "I Love You"

Today I sat around like a lump. Didn't do much of anything for the house. For most of the day, I was way depressed.

Actually, I read a lot of blogs.

I guess I've whacked enough pointless enervating extra stuff out of my life. And that means that I don't have to run around like a crazy woman all the time. And that means that occasionally I'm stymied because nothing jumps out at me for me to do it. You know how it is when there are no deadlines ... who cares whether the beds are made? Except that for some of us, being left on our own is a slippery slope. If you don't have a plan, and you start out feeling "meh" at 9:00 in the morning , the chances are later in the afternoon you'll still be feeling "meh" and the beds still won't be made.

But when I picked up the kids at school ... it cheered me up completely. I was so glad to see my children, I could have embarrassed them beyond belief by hugging them and kissing them in front of everyone.

Maybe this feeling is standard operating procedure for most mothers. But confession time--many times picking up my kids mostly kickstarts that whole "get-home do-homework cook-dinner take-baths get-kids-to-bed do-this-do-that, hey! You over there! Quit slacking off" mentality.

But now--well, I suppose I actually have free time. Now that's a scary thought ... because I guess it means this is the life I have chosen for myself. I've dumped graduate school, cut way back on the volunteer stuff. What's left? Some music, some working out, my friends, and most of all, my family. That's it.

I have time to enjoy my children.

And speaking of family--I finally talked to That Stud Muffin I Married tonight. He's been working his tail off lately and hasn't been home much. We were on the phone for 45 minutes. We had missed each other a lot.

Tuesday was the 20th anniversary of our first date. He gave me a lovely gold pin ... he's such a sweetie.

So even though he doesn't have time to enjoy me, I enjoy him--when I can (that sounds dirty, doesn't it?)

I'm rambling. But--because we've been watching a lot of Marx Brothers movies lately, I'll conclude with Groucho's sage words:

Take a pair of rabbits who
Get stuck on each other and begin to woo
And pretty soon you'll have about a million rabbits who
Say "I love you."

And that's a good thing, Groucho.

Whatever it is, I'm against it.

These are the breaks. And I don't like them:

1. That Stud Muffin I Married is in the middle of a trial. The trial is taking place in Chicago, so I can't say he's out of town. But he might as well be in San Diego.

2. My regular babysitter is home recuperating from Major Lady Parts surgery. We won't be seeing her in these parts for another month.

3. Which means I'm the only responsible adult in the place.

4. Please don't pee in your pants laughing at the idea.

5. Because I have enough messes to clean up around here.

6. The special education bimbos at my kids' school are pissing me off again.

7. I shouted at them this morning.

8. Sample shouted Poppism: "Of course math is his best subject. His father went to M. I. Fucking T.!"

9. That is an actual quotation, not what I wished I had said.

10. Actually I wish I hadn't said it.

11. I think I must be menopausal or premenstrual or maybe both.

12. One sign of being deeply hormonal is blaming everything on your hormones.

13. Sometimes I wish I still smoked, because then I could do something about my stress levels that would make me feel better, and at least it wouldn't be fattening.

14. Because another sign of being deeply hormonal is exercising and eating right and still being H U G E.

15. Another sign of being deeply hormonal is an inability to think in paragraphs,

16. instead, resorting to numbered lists.

17. Much more of this and I'll take up cigar smoking.

18. And become a female version of Groucho Marx. Or maybe George Burns.

19. Whichever I become, I'll definitely be an old wrinkly one.

20. So how's your day coming along, Gracie?

And now, an etiquette rant.

OK, I know that members of my husband's family occasionally hang out over here reading stuff I write, so this is perhaps not the most tactful way for me to proceed. But yo, husband's family, in case you didn't know it, the wedding invitation we recently received has got to be the tackiest one I've ever seen. It's the kind of thing I would expect to read about in a Miss Manners column, not have show up with my bills, catalogs, and magazines.

Let me begin by describing our wedding invitations, which in my opinion, (the only one that matters around here) were Done Correctly.

1. They were engraved on 100 percent cotton paper from Crane's.
   
2. The wording was traditional. Only the bride's mother "requested the honour of your presence," (even though the bride's father was paying) because no hint of divorce is proper on a wedding invitation. The bride was referred to as Poppy Middlename Buxom, groom was referred to as Mr. Stud Middlename Muffin.
   
3. The envelopes were addressed by the future bride herself, not a laser printer or a professional calligrapher.
   
4. The invitations were mailed in two envelopes, the outer with the addressee's full name and address,
5. The inner with just the full name.
6. The tissues that protected the envelopes from possible ink smears were removed before mailing.
7. There was no reply card.
8. There was, however, a small card inviting the recipient to the reception.
   
9. How boring! you're thinking. Not at all. I totally bucked tradition, man. The invitations were purchased at Neiman Marcus, not Tiffany's, because the Tiffany's sales associates treated me like a shoplifter until they realized the badly dressed young woman with the shabby raincoat and the big huge tote bag was there on wedding-related business and started kissing my ass a la the Julia Roberts shopping scene in Pretty Woman. But did they fool me? Not at all. And for years I boycotted Tiffanizzle's. Although it was OK if my husband shopped there.
   

OK, in the invitation I just received:

1. The invitations and envelopes were neither thermoprinted nor engraved, but laser printed.
2. The envelopes were pre-printed.
3. Our address contained not one, but two typos.
4. The bride and groom issued the invitation in their own names and added "and their parents," but didn't mention them by name.
   
5. That Stud Muffin I Married and I were referred to my our first names in the body of the invitation, i.e., "Mr. Clueless Clunk and Miss Ima Tackyone cordially invite Stud and Poppy," etc.
   
6. The wording was ... creative.
7. There was a reply card.
8. The reply card offered a choice of entrées.
9. The envelope also contained an invitation to the rehearsal dinner.
10. AND
11. There were two little square notices included to the effect that the bride and groom had registered for gifts at Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn.

Now, really. When did that nonsense start? My usual reaction to receiving a wedding invitation is to nose around and find out where--if anywhere--the bride registered for gifts. Then I always buy something from the list. I've been a bride who has received a lot of random stuff, even though I registered at three stores, and I remember what it was like to be really, really poor and surrounded by casserole dishes in six different patterns, none of which I picked.

That memory still sears, even 17 years later. So I always get what I know the bride wants. Sometimes, for the right bride, I also get something else. For example, I bought one bride the Wedgwood platter she wanted, but I also got an old leather traveling bar at a rummage sale, cleaned it up, and stocked it with the stuff you need to make Old Fashioneds. Which turned out to be perfect for them, because they took a road trip and went to Nashville for their honeymoon.

See? I admit I'm almost morbidly traditional, but I have no objection to buying people what they want. Lord knows I didn't want the six casserole dishes or the lucite tray, ice bucket, and collins glasses with the cute pattern of shells that some old lady friend of my mother's bought at Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe in Wellesley, Massachusetts, or the lamp shaped like a covered wagon.
But including notices from the stores in your wedding invitation? Why not just fucking take my ATM card and help yourself to the funds?

And yet from where I'm sitting, I can see the Sears Tower.

You Belong in Paris

Stylish and a little sassy, you were meant for Paris. The art, the fashion, the wine, the men! Whether you're enjoying the cafe life or a beautiful park... You'll love living in the most chic place on earth.

What City Do You Belong In?

FireFoxy Lady.

And yes, I'm fully aware that this post deserves an award for the "lamest bad pun title."

At any rate, the following is for Mac users who use Blogger. Windows people, move along. Nothing to see here.

Anyway, I've just downloaded FireFox--a browser I already have on my desktop but had kind of forgotten about.

• The thing is, Firefox, like Netscape 7.X supports the full complement, if that's the word I want, of Blogger-allowed Compose features.
  

Such as changing the color of the text, adding bullet points, removing formatting, keyboard shortcuts and block quotes.

The question remains will Firefox start acting hinky, like Netscape, which has developed the habit of hanging three or four times a day. Or more. In fact, you can add Netscape to yesterday's "Bite Me" list, along with Safari and IE.

Until further notice, I'm an old Jimi Hendrix song.

Two bags, too late.

Blackbird wanted to see our bags (purses, pocketbooks, totes, just pick your favorite term) for her Friday show and tell.

What is it with me that I can never get around to doing show and tell Friday on Friday? I'm posting late, and I'm recycling pictures from previous posts. How lame is that? It's lucky for me that she's decided to switch the day. So pick a day, organized people. I will abstain from the voting. And I guarantee whatever day you pick, I'll find a way to post two days late.

Anyway, my bag. Well ... I have a bunch. The one to your left is my latest acquisition, and I carry it about 80 percent of the time. It's the Coach Holiday 2005 tote. I saw someone carrying it and became obsessed. I have a way of attaining a breathtaking single-mindedness of focus when I. want. something. Needless to say, I managed to score said limited-edition, sold-out-in-stores bag pretty quickly.

(So why can't I manage to take and upload a picture on time, hmmm?)

The other bag I carry quite a bit is a Marc Jacobs knock-off from Target. I got the black one, not the white one shown here. I like the outside pockets for my keys and cell phone, and it's big enough to hold my laptop. It also zips shut, so I can stow it under the seat in front of me when I'm traveling without worrying that my wallet or a crucially important lipstick will fall out and roll away.

Although, in the words of a haiku that Basho did not write:

In my youth it was
items used for birth control
that spilled on the floor.

The following may bite me:

(One at a time, of course. And they have to have good table manners, too. I have my standards.)

At any rate, here is today's list:

1. Blogger. For refusing to allow me to upload pictures last night. Or this morning.

2. My husband's firm. For keeping him late every night this week as well as having him work both days this weekend.

3. My fat cells, for refusing to shrink no matter how much time I spend on the elliptical machine at the gym.

4. Gary Hart, for having the nerve to bum my email address from John Kerry and sending me an email.

5. John Kerry, for emailing me more frequently than I fart, if that's possible. I swear, the man is stalking me. John, get a clue. You lost the election. Can we please move on?

6. Ann Coulter, for being the crazed offspring of Veronica Lake and a male giraffe.

7. Chicago Opera Theater, for dissing me (in ways I won't go into, because I'm already foaming at the mouth) yet stupidly persisting in asking me for money. Repeat after me: "flies ... honey ... vinegar."

8. My cell phone. Not for anything in particular, I just hate cell phones. Especially mine. Especially when it rings.

9. People who strew their belongings all over the place expecting someone else to pick them up. I'll cut most of you some slack, but if we share a last name, you're on my list.

10. Karl Lagerfeld. For that stupid look he has on his face all the time. Although his collars are equally disturbing.

Crazy Day/Sane Day

Yesterday was a crazy day:

6:45 Got up and dressed.
7:00-8:00 Got children up, fed, dressed and to school.
10:00-11:00. Appointment with shrinky-drink. (What? You didn't think this blog was enough therapy, did you?)
11:00 Drove downtown for a
12:00 - 1:30 rehearsal with my singing group at my club, where I also
1:40-2:20 worked out, then
2:30 drove home,
3:11 and picked up my children at school, whereupon I immediately
3:30 took my son to yet another appointment to be psychologically evaluated.
4:00 - 5:00 I kept my daughter entertained in the waiting room, and then
5:00 took both children to karate.
5:30-6:20 While they were in class, I worked out.
6:30 Then I took the children to grocery store and bought groceries.
7:00 Got home, unpacked car, put away groceries.
7:30 Made terrible "bad Mom" hot dogs + cut up watermelon + milk dinner.
7:45 Got children into pjs; watched the last half-hour of The Cocoanuts with my son.
9:00 Read two chapters of son's latest book aloud; put children to bed.
9:15 Greeted husband upon his return home.
9:30 Took bath.
10:00 Passed out without laying out tomorrow's clothes or turning out the lights, leaving dirty dishes in kitchen.

Today I:

Got the children up,
took them to school,
and made my excuses to their teachers for their not having done a lick of homework the night before.

Came home.

Ate breakfast; read paper; cleaned up kitchen while listening to The Mating Season on CD;

Made beds and straightened up bedrooms while listening to earlymusic.net on live365;

Did a few loads of laundry.

While laundry was in machines, culled daughter's book collection.

Ate lunch while listening to more of The Mating Season.

Ordered some pjs from in the pink; posted about it on my other blog

and most importantly:

did. not. work. out.

Conclusion? All that gym time bleeds over into the rest of my life and before I know it, I'm acting like a hamster in a wheel. The lesson you should learn from this? Spend less time running around and more time sitting on your butt in front of your computer.

You're welcome.

The sounds of silence.

That sound you hear ... the crickets chirping? Is not me thinking deep thoughts. It's me at the gym, on the elliptical, listening to audiobooks with headphones on.

Or it's me in the shower, washing off the sweat, getting dressed, drying the hair, putting on the spackle, etc.

Or maybe it's me doing load after load of laundry, because funny thing! What with the workout clothes and the towels, all of a sudden I'm up to my cellulite-covered ass in laundry.

Or it's me maybe reading a book or something because I've got a ganglion in my right wrist and it's giving me an owie so I'm trying to rest it, and that means not so much mousing around the internet.

But I can still read other people's blogs, so carry on, people.