Why I don't want to be a real estate agent.

Even though half the women I know shill residential real estate, I refuse to even contemplate it.

See, here's how it would be. I figured it out from checking out a friend of mine's listings.

The other agents would get the listings with the beautiful, gracious, traditional, formal rooms. Like this dining room:


I'd get the listings with the twenty year old master bathrooms slathered in garish tile, looking like something Darryl Hannah would have decorated in Wall Street. Like this:

Celebrities are just like us!

What do I do when I'm not gorging on Thanksgiving leftovers and Greys Anatomy DVDs?

Housecleaning. Specifically, cleaning up my desktop.

See, I wander around looking for material for Mamarazzi entries. And I don't always use them. But my desktop becomes covered with photographs. Some of them pretty astonishing. Don't believe me? Welcome to the Mamarazzi entry that wasn't.

Celebrities are just like us! They look shitty without their makeup on:

They have bad comb-overs



And they sometimes forget where they left the ice cream scoop. In Tori's case, it was in the plastic surgeon's hands.


Paula's plastic surgeon has also been using the wrong implement:


So now I can throw those pictures out.

I couldn't do it before. It would have been such a waste. But now I've shared them with you, and I'm no longer alone in my waking nightmare, am I?

The seventh son of a seventh son

Or in this case, the sixth picture in the sixth folder in my picture files.

Which is from Disneyland. Spring break, 2008. The Grand Californian hotel, which is like a bungalow, but on steroids. I mean, it is to Mission/Bungalow style as St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is to your parish church.

So anyway, I was very taken by the rug with its pattern of POPPIES. So I took a picture of it and also, for reasons that elude me at the moment, of my feet.

I guess you could live without the sight of my feet, but just learn to deal with their pasty whiteness.

This meme courtesy of the lovely SarahO. Here's what you do:

Here are the rules:

* Go to your Sixth Picture Folder then pick your Sixth Picture.
* Pray that you remember the details.
* Tag 5 others.

I hereby tag blackbird, joke, badger, knitters-knitters, and jenontheedge.

Butter Thanksgiving report

It all went very well, except for the part where I wanted to put my husband and sisters-in-law through a paddle-wheel for being so NOISY and generally CHATTY and BUBBLY when I was TRYING to make GRAVY in a BRAND-NEW roasting pan that has a NON-STICK LINING and therefore requires SPECIAL IMPLEMENTS that I couldn't FIND.

(I'd like to pause here for a minute and for a moment of thankfulness. Thank you, dooce, for inventing "dooce caps," which allow us to say very straightforward things EXTREMELY EMPHATICALLY in a way which we hope is HUMOROUS.)

So anyway, here was the menu ... in all it's almost-completely-from-scratch glory:

Turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and two sticks of butter
Mashed potatoes with butter and light cream, i.e., the real way, not that heretical way Joke keeps going on about
Green beans tossed in melted butter and freshly grated parmesan cheese
Pureed Sweet Potatoes with buttery Pecan Praline topping
Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Butter
Wild Rice Salad with Pecans and no butter
The World's Most Fattening tossed salad with blue cheese, pine nuts, croutons, olive oil and mayonnaise but no butter

Pecan pie with pecans and brown sugar and guess what?
Chocolate chocolate chip Bundt cake
Whipped cream, which if we'd kept whipping, would have turned into butter
Cranberry-Oatmeal cookies and three sticks of butter right there

a whole box of those Mozart Kugeln
Coffee with cream, and not, you'll be amazed to hear, butter

I had one small plateful of food and a taste of the pie and cake. Then I sat around and felt stuffed and uncomfortable. For hours. WAS IT THE BUTTER?

I only feel better now that I've spent two hours on my feet doing dishes. This doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but I enjoyed it. I got to listen to my latest audiobook while I hand-washed and put away my grandmother's china, and I think the resulting standing forced the food away from my gall bladder, which judging from the amount of butter in tonight's dinner, must have been ready to explode. So I was actually glad to do it.

To the glow I always feel after I've achieved another new high point in housewifery, I can now add the realization that I haven't burped in HOURS.

We had fun. To the crowd of Buxoms there was added my son's cello teacher. My son's cello teacher is obviously quite capable of talking about classical music, and therefore kept my father-in-law out of trouble. Also we had my friend "Vodka," who has a daughter the same age as ours, and the two of them managed to kept my daughter out of trouble. She was excited and giggly, and she wanted to lip-synch to Madonna songs, but no tears were shed.

I thought we were going to have more people, so I rented a 72-inch round table and six gold ballroom chairs from one of those party rental places. We didn't end up using the table, but the pretty gold ballroom chairs rock. I didn't take pictures, because I was too busy looking for the PLASTIC whisk for the GRAVY so I wouldn't SCRATCH THE NEW PAN WITH MY DOOCE-CAPS but they looked amazingly festive. I think I might buy some. Maybe if I have lovely ballroom chairs, I'll cook dinner for people more often than Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I mean, I'm a good cook. Just ask the people who were sitting around tonight burping.

Oh, and my son's cello teacher wanted to play the piano and accompanied me while I sang a Faure song, so the evening had very Parisian-salon overtones.

In addition to the burping, I mean.

In conclusion, I have only this to say: BUTTER.

I'm stuffed.

We ordered Chinese food tonight, and I strictly forbade everyone to leave even a bite of leftovers, because there isn't room in the refrigerator for a single waxed paper carton. So everyone ate and ate, and now we're sitting around, quietly bulging.

And it's the day BEFORE Thanksgiving. This is all shades of wrong, people.

In other news, my husband's fambly is here and I won't say anything mean about them, because that is not What Jesus Would Do.

Also, if my husband wants someone to say something mean about his family? He's going to have to do it himself. I'm a busy woman, and I have my own family to be mean about.

Thanksgiving count down

Here's what's done so far:

1. the pecan pie is baked and in the freezer
2. the 72 inch round table and 8 chairs are ordered from the party rental place
3. there's a raw turkey in the refrigerator, and a whole lot of raw fresh food all over the kitchen counters

Here's what I need to do next:

1. Everything.

Did I mention that my in-laws are coming tomorrow, and they're spending the night? Which means sheets and towels all around.

So tomorrow I'll start where I want to end--by setting the dining room table. Then I'll make the sweet potato/praline side dish. And the cranberry sauce. Then I'm baking pumpkin bread and chocolate Bundt cake and these cookies:

Cranberry-Oatmeal Cookies*

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
1/3/4 cups light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
1 1/2 T. honey
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups unbleached flour
1 box (18 oz) old-fashioned rolled oats
12 oz. fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
finely chopped zest of 1 orange
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (I might use pecans)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs, honey, vanilla, and salt. Beat until smooth and creamy. Using a large wooden spoon or your hands, work in the flour and oats until well combined. Add the cranberries, raisins, orange zest, and walnuts. Mix until evenly incorporated. With your hands, form the dough on the baking sheets into patties 1/2 inch thick and 2/12 to 3 inches in diameter. Bake the cookies until lightly browned but still a little soft at the center, 15 or 20 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 25 cookies.

* From Sarah Leah Chase's Cold Weather Cooking

Mamarazzi Monday: New York Times declares itself a member of Team Jen

I don't know why anyone should be particularly surprised that Angelina Jolie is gifted at self-promotion. But that's what The New York Times was reporting on Saturday--that Angelina Jolie is a superb media manipulator the likes of which haven't been seen since the glory days of Leni Reifenstahl.

And then on Sunday, whose picture ended up on the cover of the magazine? Jennifer Aniston's.

So I guess we know whose side they're on.

But back to Angelina. Hello? First was wearing a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck, and the next thing you know, she's Mother Theresa's body double. Of course she's good at PR.

At any rate, I felt it was my duty to head over to Mamarazzi this morning and strike a blow for journalistic integrity.

Because what says "journalistic integrity" more than calling Angelina Jolie a "tramp-stamped, husband-stealing skank?"

Also, Angie?



That dress does make you look fat.

Mamarazzi Monday: New York Times declares itself a member of Team Jen

I don't know why anyone should be particularly surprised that Angelina Jolie is gifted at self-promotion. But that's what The New York Times was reporting on Saturday--that Angelina Jolie is a superb media manipulator the likes of which haven't been seen since the glory days of Leni Reifenstahl.

And then on Sunday, whose picture ended up on the cover of the magazine? Jennifer Aniston's.

So I guess we know whose side they're on.

But back to Angelina. Hello? First she was wearing a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck, and the next thing you know, she's Mother Theresa's body double. Of course she's good at PR.

At any rate, I felt it was my duty to head over to Mamarazzi this morning and strike a blow for journalistic integrity.

Because what says "journalistic integrity" more than calling Angelina Jolie a "tramp-stamped, husband-stealing skank?"

Also, Angie?



That dress does make you look fat.

How do they know that George W. Bush's IQ is 125? And other questions.

1. I've started stockpiling non-perishable food, paper goods, and cleaning supplies. Is this an irrational reaction to the country's current financial crisis, and if so, will I get better soon? I ask because pretty soon I won't be able to get into my laundry room. Those eight-packs of paper towels are taking up a LOT of room.

2. When I got home from church today, my husband had baked a pecan pie AND fixed the broken drawer in the master bathroom AND cleaned up the kitchen AND bought and installed a new electrical outlet. Is it true, as I suspect, that he's just trolling for a really good Christmas present?

3. Speaking of Christmas, how much should I hate my neighbors for having their Christmas wreaths and garlands and lights up--some of which were installed by professionals? In my opinion, on a sliding scale between 1 and 10, this rates an 8. Am I being too harsh?

4. We're watching Grey's Anatomy on DVD. It's such a silly show. It's like a soap opera, but with flashes of humor, and much better production values, and with stories that make satisfying stand-alone narratives--except broadcast at night, and only once a week instead of every day. So OK, not that much like a soap opera. But just as silly. Should I be ashamed of how much I enjoy it?

Saturday breakfast

Before

This was for the kids. Chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, orange juice, milk, and tea.

And after

I had blueberry pancakes.

Long Island Dumbo Buxom

If I had a baby, that's what I'd name him. Or her. I got the idea from Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz. They named their baby son

Bronx


Mowgli


Wentz


It's obvious that the baby name du jour is created using the following formula:

New York Borough + Disney character + somebody's last name

At any rate, that's what I came up with when I tried out the new Mamarazzi Baby Name Generator.

How about you?

I am a sleazebag.

I've discovered a fool-proof way to look like a really good person.

Don't get excited--I don't mean in general; I just mean as a volunteer. (The good-person-in-general thing continues to elude me, OK?)

But about volunteering--I have a dream job at the moment. I'm the recording secretary for a non-profit. Now, I volunteered for this job in fear and trembling, because I've been a recording secretary before. And I knew I'd have to go to all the board meetings and take notes and then type up minutes. I've done it before, and it really sucked.

But it seemed preferable to the other job I was offered, so I volunteered to do it.

But here's the cool part: being recording secretary seems awfully arduous to everyone else on the board. So arduous that the previous recording secretary didn't actually produce any minutes. So arduous that our paid administrative assistant keeps complimenting me on what a great job I'm doing with this arduous task.

But I've chaired black tie galas (with my new-found mastery of Latin, I should say "galae.") I've edited newsletters, and produced annual reports, and been in charge of arranging nice luncheon programs for blue-haired old ladies. I've devolved into a blob of protoplasm at any number of dull board meetings.

In comparison, this recording secretary gig? Is totally sweet.

See, I have to attend the board meetings--but I'd be doing that anyway. And taking notes? Well, it beats not really listening and getting bored. And typing up the minutes? Hello? Who's known on the internet as the Princess of Punctuation? Who blogs every day, not because she has anything in particular to say, but because she types 60 words a minute?

Me.

So I did the math. The board meetings are almost exactly one hour long. The driving back and forth is another hour and a half, during which I get to listen to an audiobook. And yesterday I typed up, proofed, and emailed out the minutes in 80 minutes.

It's over four hours, but that's in an entire month. That is WAY less time than chairing a fundraiser.

So this is a dream job. No one is going to ask me to do anything else, because everyone thinks I'm working my butt off--when I'm actually doing far less work than usual. And I'm gorging myself on compliments.

On top of which, apparently, I'm totally sexy.



So everything is really great!

The only problem is a few people on this board read this blog.

Caeci sunt duces caecorum

Translation?

"They are blind and they are leading the blind."

In other words, guess who spent about an hour helping her son with his Latin homework?

Shyeah, right.

It's lucky I live 900 miles from my family of origin, or the roars of scornful laughter would shatter every pane of glass in my house.

I'm not MIA

For the last couple of days, I've been blogging at my shopping blog.

How to cook a pumpkin in 20 easy steps

For some reason, I went completely mental cooking today. I came home from church, went into the kitchen, and stayed there for about 10 million hours, give or take an hour or two.

Don't believe me? This is what I cooked today: a pot of chili, three loaves of banana bread, stir-fried beef with broccoli, and two pumpkins.

Now I'm sure you are all incredibly impressed that I did this, so I'd like to give you some step-by-step directions for cooking pumpkin.

1. Completely clean the kitchen, down to windexing all the counters, because God forbid pumpkin guts should land on a less-than-pristine surface.

2. Lay down a few sheets of newspaper. Pumpkin guts like to keep up with current events.

3. Cut the stem area off the pumpkin. Don't worry about the parts the squirrels chewed on; no one is going to get rabies. Cut around those places if it bothers you. Sheesh. You're such a pussy!

4. Scoop out pumpkin seeds and guts with an ice cream scoop.*

5. Squeeze the pumpkin glop off the seeds. Put the seeds in a bowl of water to which you've added a tablespoon of salt. Leave to soak overnight. Foodies call this process "brineing." Ignore them.

6. Tomorrow you can spread the wet, salted seeds on a lightly oiled cookie sheet and bake them at 350 until they get a tan. But we're not there yet. We need to get back to the pumpkin.

7. Cut the pumpkin into halves or maybe thirds. Put on a cookie sheet. If you're worried about the pumpkin getting burned or dried out or whatever, brush with a little oil.

8. Bake at 375 degrees for an hour. From time to time open the oven and prod at the pumpkin flesh with a fork, curse, and close the oven door.

9. After an hour of this nonsense, remove the pumpkin pieces from the oven and allow them to cool.

10. Try the fork thing again.

11. When that doesn't work, put the pumpkin pieces flesh side down on a china plate. Place in microwave and zap for three minutes.

12. You've got to be kidding me. Three minutes is long enough to bake a potato.

13. Leave baked, zapped pumpkin pieces on the cookie sheet on the kitchen counter. Go talk on the phone, watch a DVD, and fold laundry.

14. Go back into kitchen to shut it down for the night. Realize that the skin peels easily off the now-cool pumpkin.

15. Peel rind off pumpkin pieces.

16. Put pumpkin in Tupperware.

17. Put Tupperware in refrigerator.

18. Shut the door.

19. Go upstairs.

20. Get in bed and blog about it on your laptop.


* The one piece of useful advice in this entire post.

Why I never use MySpace any more

I got a notice that I'd received an email from one of my MySpace friends, so I logged on to my account. And when I was there, I saw I had a friend request.

From this guy:


So if you don't hear from me tomorrow, it's because I died of fright after being exposed to the basilisk glare of I. Brow Scary McScowlyface.

For Friday's Mamarazzi: piping hot transgendered news!

Now mostly, on Mamarazzi I only make fun of celebrity parents. You know, people who got famous first, and then spawned.

I don't usually bother with people who are only celebrities because they've had babies. I mean, I don't really feel like feeding the whole Dionne Quintuplets media beast.

But today I couldn't resist.

That person with the lady parts and the beard--no, not the one from the traveling circus



the one from the media circus



is having another baby.

Now, a better woman would rise above this sort of material.

Which is, of course, why I clutched it to my heaving bosom and thanked my lucky stars that the story broke yesterday.

So tell me. Is this story as weird as I think, and should Barbara Walters be ashamed of herself for being a shameless panderer of titillating tidbits, and if I call her up and ask her really, really nicely, would she give me pandering lessons?

Only 13 more cooking days until Thanksgiving

Hey, internet! I'm getting all excited that Thanksgiving is coming.

You know, I never used to be particularly enthusiastic about Thanksgiving, but then, about four years ago, we took over cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's family. And we'd do it in New Hampshire, where I could never remember where I left the tablecloths, or whether I had any candles, or where we keep the carving knife and fork. And then a major appliance would fail just when it was needed most, and that would screw things up so badly that I'd start to feel kind of weird and goofy, as if I'd been teleported into an episode of I Love Lucy.

But we'd have a great time, anyway.

Now, this year, we doing Thanksgiving again, and we're not going to New Hampshire, which means that the time I usually spend waiting to go through airport security can now be spent digging out the turkey shaped gravy boat. And putting new Thanksgiving-y colored candles into the freshly-polished candlesticks. Stuff like that.

So call me mental, but I'm going to begin the travel-free, slow-food Thanksgiving celebration by cooking a bunch of pumpkins. Because I still have eight pie pumpkins leftover from the Girl Scouts pumpkin-carving meeting. Isn't that all green and thrifty and recycle-y of me?

I don't know how much puree I'm going to end up with, but definitely enough for a couple of pumpkin pies. I'm also thinking of forcing my husband to make pumpkin ravioli with sage butter. If he balks, I'll remind him that our brother-in-law is a vegetarian.

I'd also considering the possibility of trying a new recipe I found in this week's New York Times food section. It's for pumpkin cake with chocolate chips. I know--weird, right? I can't wrap my brain around the idea at all. I'm probing at the concept with my mental taste buds, but seriously, the combination simply will not compute. My brain is de-evolving even as I type. It's saying something like this:

PUMPKIN + CHOCOLATE != GOOD | > /dev/null.

And yet, somehow, I am still fascinated.

But maybe I should just stick to the classic pumpkin pie.

So what about you, Internet? Are you happy that Halloween is over, yet the long National Nightmare that is the Christmas Shopping Season is not yet upon us? Are you, too, getting psyched for turkey day?

The sounds of silence were drowned out by my car going vroom vroom vroom

So today was the day where I was supposed to hang around and enjoy the dearth of workmen in my house as well as the lack of construction noises they weren't making.

Except that I was on the road by 9:00 to get to a 10:00 board meeting downtown, followed by a 12:00 rehearsal, another hour to get home again, a trip to my son's cello lesson, the dropping off of my daughter at dancing class, the picking up my son at dancing class and taking him to choir, and ending with the final pick up at 9:15. Which is 12 hours in my car, and thank God my latest audiobook is entertaining.

And when I had a moment where I wasn't driving around? The phone rings and it's Angie's List, wanting me to review the contractors I've been using:

"Yes, we had our roof worked on. Powerwashing, brightening, and moss prevention. They were very good."

"Yes, we had a new driveway installed. They were very prompt, professional, and competitively priced. Yes I would recommend them."

"Yes, we had a deck installed. Well, I don't actually have anything to say about that because they just finished it yesterday and I haven't really been out on it because it's been RAINING, OK?"

Christ, it's like the wedding's over, things have quieted down, and now I have to write thank you letters to my contractors.

Also? I hate Wednesdays.

Life, as I once knew it, is over.

The roof guys, who came and power-washed the roof and left a thick pile of mud and dead leaves all over the front steps and walk, have departed.

The driveway guys, who came and ripped up the old asphalt, redesigned the driveway, poured concrete, smoothed it to perfection, and then removed the framework, have gone.

The deck guys, who came and ripped out the old back steps and deck, and then spent a couple of weeks sawing and hammering and leaving chunks of wood all over the back yard, finished today.

Without guys just outside playing loud bad classic rock, talking in loud voices, using power tools, interrupting me to ask me what I'd like them to do, and asking to use my washroom or for a check, frankly, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Take pictures and post them on the internet?

Getting to know you ... over breakfast

I went over to see new commenter Ingrid because I thought a friendly comment from me would be polite. Instead I saw this post of hers and thought, "wow, what a great idea for a meme." So I stole the meme and ran back here. Sorry, Ingrid!

What's your favorite breakfast?

Two eggs over easy, with bacon and an English muffin. A little unsalted butter on the English muffin, but only if I'm not feeling fat. Otherwise, dry. A small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and a hot caffeinated beverage--which one would would depend on where I am.

You see, the tea is better at home, and the coffee is better when I'm out. Those places that bring you a small pot of hot, not boiling water and a tea bag, in the inimitable words of Kim from all consuming, "shit me to tears." And restaurants have half & half, which is delicious, but which is strictly off-limits chez Buxom, probably because we'd drink it. You know, instead of milk. Then again, I could end up in a restaurant with some crappy old coffee that's been sitting on a burner for way too long.

The caffeine thing must be figured out on a case-by-case basis, is what I'm saying here.

Also! No home fries or any other kind of potato. Let's be real, people; restaurants just do that to fill you up for cheap. And potatoes are for dinner.

If you were breakfast, what would you be?

Chipped poppy on toast with a side of Barbara Walters, and if you don't understand that allusion, I don't blame you at all. In fact, you have my sympathy.

Egg Yolks: runny or solid?

Runny, unless the eggs are supposed to be hard boiled, in which case, runny yolks are weird and scary.

*****
And now, a spot of didacticism. As in detective fiction, there are degrees of boiling in eggs. We have hard-boiled detective fiction, where everyone is tough and heartless, like Mickey Spillane, and we have soft-boiled detective fiction peopled with lovable protagonists where sometimes nobody even gets murdered, like Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers. Well, between soft-boiled and hard-boiled there is a stage, like Janet Evanovich or Robert Parker, where the outside is tough, but the yolk remains soft, humorous, and erotic, like a description of Stephanie Plum getting it on with Ranger.

Now, the French have a term for this kind of thing, which is oeufs mollets, which are eggs boiled for about eight minutes, until the white is firm, but the yolk is still soft. The French like to embed them in chaud froids garnished with truffles and little designs cut out of demi-glace, or put them in a salade compose. They are exquisite, but pretty much unavailable in the United States, hence the lack of a term for them on this side of the pond.

And this explains the popularity of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. We don't get enough oeufs mollets on our plates, so we make do with tough-on-the-outside, soft-in-the-middle detective fiction.

Oh, and apparently the Brits call this a "coddled egg." But that is far too namby-pamby-sounding a name for a rugged American egg, for heaven's sake.

Thus ends the digression.

*****

Weekend breakfast: healthy or indulgent? I don't really want to hear about your healthy breakfast, but what is your favorite indulgent one? Indulgent would be Eggs Benedict washed down with champagne, and an extra English muffin to mop up any leftover Hollandaise sauce, if any, or to be eaten with apricot preserves.

Bacon or sausage? Why? Bacon. Because sausage is greasy and often too peppery, and it's made of anonymous, highly-suspicious ingredients, like pig ears, veal jowls, and pope's noses.

And because sausage is used in weird food combinations found in restaurants I avoid, like McDonald's Egg McMuffins and Denny's Sausage Biscuits and Gravy.

But mostly because I like to eat sausages at lunch or dinner.

With potatoes.

I cheated on my husband tonight

He's on a business trip. And I am the stereotypical wife who loses her moral compass when her husband isn't around. First Eve, now me.

See, we've been watching Grey's Anatomy on DVD, and even though it's a total soap opera (maybe BECAUSE it's a total soap opera) I watched the last two episodes on our current disk without him.

I feel so dirty.

I mean ... when you cheat on your husband, it should be for something really good. So tell me. Does the annoying voice-over stuff ever stop?

From the archives--no, not of this blog.

I was going to talk about how we went to the symphony tonight and had a lovely time and LEFT OUR CHILDREN ALONE AT HOME WITHOUT A BABYSITTER, thereby saving about $80. But for some reason, I never want to talk about what I've actually done.

So instead, I'll show you some pictures I found in my cell phone.

Now, in order to construct some kind of narrative arc to unite what is obviously a random selection of pictures, I'll pretend to be teaching you how to take better pictures with your cell phone. Assuming you have one. (And who doesn't? Only the Amish and my mother.)

First, I'll teach you how to take a good picture when it's dark, and a brightly illuminated object is moving by you. For example, if you're watching the parade of boats at Chicago's famous Venetian Night:



don't bother.

Guess what? I am equally bad at photographing fireworks, as demonstrated in this photograph:


The trick to taking good photographs of fireworks is to ignore the fireworks themselves. You'll get a much better picture if you just aim your cell phone at the empty night sky and start snapping. Out of the 2,481 pictures you end up taking, one will be amazing. All you have to do then is find it.

When I'm not taking blurry, cornea-searing photographs of dazzlingly bright fireworks because I'm too drunk to remember that all 17 of my attempts will look like shit, I'm getting drunk and taking pictures of my friends' apartments.



Especially of their paintings. I can really see myself in this one. (In case you can't see it, and I don't see why you should, since it's both dim and blurry, I'll tell you that this is a still life of several things--including a vase of poppies. The two lessons we learn from this picture? 1. Incandescent light turns everything yellow, and 2. I am not as funny as I think I am.)

OK, a serious tip for you: natural light is best. This picture of my son's Malayan box turtle was taken on our porch.



I took this almost three years ago, but the colors still look fresh. Also, my, how he's grown! His dog dish is much tighter now.


This is my son being Ben Franklin in the fifth grade play. Wasn't he adorable? (Say yes.) It's possible that he's not as adorable now. For one thing, he's a lot taller than me now. I wouldn't even try to fit him into a dog dish.


Another picture where the lighting cooperated. It's of a haul from a used book store. I order you to be covetous of The American Woman's COOK BOOK. One of these days I'll actually try to learn how to COOK from it. But for now, I'm too mesmerized by the illustrations to read it. The color photographs--which were not taken with a cell phone--have a strange fascination for me. There's something about them ... I've got it! They're in focus!

OK, I saved the worst for last. To my dismay, I've discovered that if I zoom in on anything, I end up with a picture about the size of a postage stamp. A blurry one. But I wanted to try and document that shameless way enormous mutant rabbits are TAKING OVER MY YARD.

If this were Australia, people would be so enraged by the brazen way these rodents are colonizing my yard, they'd be throwing bricks at their laptops. I mean, I drive up and get out of my car, and there they are, gamboling and frisking about like I'm Beatrix bloody Potter in need of a few story ideas. And I know that as soon as I turn my back, they'll be in my rose garden gnawing my prize plants down to sorry little stumps, and, I have no doubt, oppressing the native-born chipmunks and squirrels.

And they're not even scared of me. They didn't even flinch when I took their pictures.

In fact, if you look closely, you can see that they're actually posing.

It's Friday, so it must be time for Mamarazzi

Angelina Jolie credits her post-twins weight loss to ... video games.

Hey, my house is bulging (and I use the term deliberately) with video games, but I don't notice myself getting more fit.

Is she pulling my flabby, cellulite-ridden leg?

After choir practice ...

I went out with my girlfriends and got kind of drunk.

See, there's this restaurant in town that serves great food, but here's a dirty little secret: after dinner, it turns into Girls Night Out. Complete with lots and lots of wine.

Seriously, if you're into MILFs, have I got a place for you.

THANK YOU INTERNET!

YOU'RE ALWAYS THERE FOR ME!

YOU ARE THE BESSSHHHHTTTT FRIENDSSSSHHH I EVER HAD. :D :D :D

... but that dress? Sucked.

And I'm not the only one who feels that way.

It actually doesn't look so bad in this picture.
One of the groups I sing with is made up of 12 women, all of whom are incredibly sharp. One of them is a personal shopper at Saks.

I always try to clean up my sorry act when I head downtown to rehearse with them. Today I showed up a little late and caught everyone talking about the rally in Grant Park.

Did they talk about how well-behaved the crowd was, or how crowded it was, or how proud they felt of Chicago? Maybe. But when I got there, they were all agreeing about one thing: Worst. Dress. Ever. Everyone thought the black belt thingie made her look pregnant.

What do you think? Lovely or lava lamp?

I am Chicago

And

I

am

so

PROUD.

Smooch

Halloween 2008

In years past, our Halloween costumes have been somewhat ... elaborate. Which is a very tactful and understated way of describing the insanity of spending the night before Halloween making a Lisa Simpson wig out of a knit hat, a yellow swim noodle, and a lot of yellow plumber's tape.


At other times we've resorted for the expensive glamor of catalog costumes.


Or put together a Luigi costume with mail-ordered overalls, a silver backpack, a vacuum cleaner hose and a pair of Mickey Mouse hands.


But we were kind of low-key this year.

My daughter wanted to be a pop star. She wanted to wear one of those pre-made costumes, but they don't come in her size. So we used some stuff she already owned, a leopard print hoodie from Delias, some rhinestone-trimmed jeans from eBay, and all the glittery makeup I could dig up. Plus rhinestone sunglasses. And a microphone, in case people didn't get the point.

And my son ... well, he wanted to be John Rowser, the famous bountyhunter.

What's this? You've never heard of John Rowser? Well, of course you haven't. My son made him up. He's one of the dozens and dozens of characters who people the alternate universe my son has invented. They're going to end up a television show, movies, recordings, YouTube videos, video games--you name it. The residuals will have us living on easy street. Eventually.

However, there are still no John Rowser costumes available at the store. Yeah, yeah, yeah, any day now ... I keep checking ... but in the meantime, my son decided to accommodate his rapidly-aging mother and be someone recognizable. Like Zorro.

The fact that we already had a cloak, mask, and black hat in our costume stash had nothing to do with it. I swear.

So this

and this


were the inspiration for this


And I think we did OK.

Although brown shoes with a black outfit? Very bad. And the usual "Glamour Don't" black bar is out of the question, because he's already got a black bar across his eyes.

But frankly, a giant "Z" across each shoe is called for.

Lacking that, I'm simply going to have to confiscate all his Milky Ways.

Halloween at the Clampetts Buxoms

The day after Halloween, Mr. Buxom and I went for a long walk and admired the Halloween decorations.

OK, we didn't really admire them. With our ceaseless thirst for long, cool, heady draughts of sweet, sweet mockery, we mostly weighed their efforts in the balance, and found them wanting.

Actually, my husband is easily pleased. But I'm a tough judge. When it comes to Halloween decorations, my preference is for the low-key, the traditional, the home-made, the casual, and the inexpensive. However, I am grossly outnumbered by people who can't wait to head to a big box store and come home with a huge inflatable snow globe filled with ghosts.

But some of their efforts met with our approval. I like this house, and I'm not surprised that I also like their Halloween decorations. Sure, they went a little heavy with the painted yard signs,



but the little kids will actually be able to make it all the way up the walk to get their candy--without pissing their costumes with fright. Painted yard signs? $5.00. Dry Halloween costume? Priceless.

This is a typical example of Newtopian over-the-top-ness. We have the cobwebs, gravestones, skeletons, giant spiders



but we also have the corn stalks, seasonal wreath, and colorful mums. It's like a schizophrenic lives there, and he can't decide whether he's tasteful or tacky, so he decided to be both.

These people had an impressive number of expressive pumpkins.



We awarded big points for all that carving.

Some people go kind of overboard when it comes to inflatable lawn decorations



to the point where their front yards look like a carnival bounce house.



I mean, seriously, they could charge admission. Click on the pictures if you want to see the inflatable hearse filled with ghosts.

I loved these ghosts



but I suspect that they had help hanging them from their trees. They're twenty feet off the ground, suspended from long wires.

In fact, I'm beginning to wonder whether people are outsourcing their Halloween decorations to those companies that will come and put up Christmas lights. It would explain a lot.





Either that or it's Halloween at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

After all the judgey judgmentalism, it's nice to head home to the Clampetts-y end of town, to the lovable shack where the Buxoms started off the whole decorate-your-house-for-Halloween by making ghosts out of our old sheets


A particularly woebegone example

and putting out a few pumpkins


Which we didn't even bother to carve

There are purple icicle lights in the Japanese maple, and orange ones in the evergreens. OK?



Look, I know our yard looks lame. And messy. I mean, can you believe the nerve of us? There are dead leaves on our walk!

But dig my newly-treated moss-free cedar roof and our new cee-ment driveway. (I know what you're thinking, "So what?" but trust me; our neighbors are thrilled.) And to those of you who are wondering "Where's the giant purple inflatable spider?" give it time. My daughter has gone from the kid who made me walk up to the door past all the rotting zombie corpses complete with putrefied flesh to get her a candy bar to someone who wants the whole nine yards: pumpkins, ghosts, black cats, grave yards, dry ice, inflatables, arachnids, freshly-dug graves, the entire Universal pictures prop closet, and this motion-activated screaming death's head



which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'm doomed."