I'm sick and tired of

cropped pants

smoky eyes

bare legs all the time (regardless of occasion, weather, or age)

platform shoes

nail art

arm parties

tissue weight fabrics

visible zippers

skinny jeans

leopard print

studs or spikes on shoes

shoes that looks like hooves

crazy hooker stilettos

A mug's life, or, reports from the laundry pile.

In case you were wondering, we arrived home safely at about 6:00 p.m. Our trip to England was wonderful. Just wonderful. Best family vacation ever. I saw Stonehenge! And Oxford! And sang in a 13th-century cathedral!

When we got home, the mail was stacked up and waiting; Toby the Turtle was fed and happy, and no one had stolen the jewelry I had never locked up at the bank because I couldn't find the safe deposit box key.

Now the suitcases are unpacked. The loot is organized. The laundry is about halfway done. Groceries have been bought. And even cooked.

I'll get around to posting more trip reports and pictures of England. I really will. I've been expensively educated and now possess a high degree of writing skill. Coming up with evocative descriptions of the sheep in the meadow/the cows in the corn is a piece of cake.

But the internet prefers pictures. And for me to shut up.

As I think about the mechanics of uploading hundreds of photographs to my laptop and then to Flickr or this blog, I realize my vacation really is over. And real life has me by the scruff of the neck.

My son is starting high school in less than a week. He's going from a class of 60 to a class of 1,000. Ordinarily I'm not much of a worrier, but I got off that plane and immediately became frantic. How's he going to handle it? And how do they get lunch? And how many gym uniforms should I buy? What's with this fancy new calculator they say we need? Why aren't the old fancy calculators good enough?

And he needs new sneakers.

Also, my daughter is sick and is coughing in a very bronchial fashion. That's a bit worrisome, too.

They're both getting full-on braces on Friday. (Should we eat caramel corn non-stop until then? Because after Friday, it's no more caramel corn for them for quite a while.)

I'm still waking up at 5:00 a.m. every day.

It's raining. Maybe that's why it's kind of dark outside ...

It was late, and I was exhausted

so luckily, Joke had a meme for me to steal.

1. How do you like your eggs?
Scrambled--but softly. No little hard weeping yellow rabbit turds, s.v.p.

2. How do you take your coffee/tea?
Tea: PG Tips, boil the water, heat the pot, then steep five teabags in a big teapot for five minutes. Two percent milk and Splenda.

I'm not nearly as fussy about coffee. I prefer American coffee but will tolerate a latte or cappuccino. Occasionally I go wild with cream or even, if I'm at a rest stop and have no choice, creamer, but the usual 2 percent milk and sugar substitute is what I really prefer.

I don't like and won't drink either one black.

Oh, and caffeinated, for Christ's sake. Unless it's midnight.

3. Favorite breakfast food:

scrambled eggs with sauteed tomatoes and goat cheese or

a bowl of maple-flavored Weight Loss oatmeal with frozen blueberries or

Wheat Chex and a banana

always with

tea

and don't be stingy, baby.

4. Peanut butter:
Smucker's stir-up-the-oil, creamy not chunky--I hate those little peanut nibs. They get stuck in my teeth.

5. What kind of dressing on your salad?
There is only one dressing: home-made vinaigrette. That I made. According to my particular method. (That I think I ripped off from James Beard.)

6. Coke or Pepsi?
Diet Coke. In a can or a fountain one in a paper cup. I hate the way iced beverages weep water all over the place.

7. You’re feeling lazy. What do you make?
A toasted bagel with butter.

8. You’re feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order?
Mixed vegetable. With broccoli if I can get it. But we make our own pizza, so I do better than that at home. Try sauteed shallots and blue cheese, or goat cheese and sauteed sweet red pepper, or lots of different kinds of sauteed mushrooms. Or anchovy. NO MEAT; I can't stand any of that greasy, sausage-y stuff.

9. You feel like cooking. What do you make?
Well, today I made a roast capon with stuffing, roast new potatoes, steamed broccoli, and a tossed green salad heavy on the cucumbers and sweet red pepper.

10. Do any foods bring back good memories?
Yes, lots.

11. Do any foods bring back bad memories?
Yes, lots. Any food with that cafeteria feeling brings back evil memories of feeling dorky in 5th and 6th grade.

12. Do any foods remind you of someone?
Anything flavored with bourbon reminds me of my mother, because she flavors all desserts with bourbon. I mean, you practicaly expect to find it in her chocolate chip cookies.

13. Is there a food you refuse to eat?
Prairie oysters. (They aren't oysters at all. They can't kid ME.)

14. What was your favorite food as a child?
Succotash. I never seemed to get enough lima beans.

15. Is there a food that you hated as a child but now like?
Yes, lots. Ham, cheese, and mustard are three that come immediately to mind. You can imagine what a joy I was whenever I was offered a ham and cheese sandwich. And with mustard? World War III probably seemed preferable. Now I love all three. Go figure.

16. Is there a food that you liked as a child but now hate?
Hi-C "fruit" "drink"

17. Favorite fruit and vegetable:
fruit--wow, that's a tough one, but I'd have to say oranges. Although there isn't anything better than a perfectly ripe pear.
vegetable--another tough one. I'd say tomatoes, closely followed by eggplant

18. Favorite junk food:
Skittles

19. Favorite between meal snack:
Anything not nailed down. If calories weren't an issue, I'd say nuts. Cashews, especially.

20. Do you have any weird food habits?
I tend to eat all of a food on my plate, then move to the next food.
I hate listening to people talk about food.
I especially hate listening to foodies talk about food. After about five minutes of listening to people discuss various kinds of salt or vinegar or whatever they're nattering on about, my hand moves unconsciously towards my not-very-impressive knife collection, because I need to jullienne their noses.

21. You’re on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on?
Fruit, salads, those baby carrots that come in a bag, sugarless gum, Diet Coke, tea, miso soup

22. You’re off your diet. Now what would you like?
A margarita, one of those layered taco dips, and a bag of tortilla chips

23. How spicy do you order Indian/Thai?
Medium

24. Can I get you a drink?
Sure!

25. Red or White Wine?
White unless I'm eating red meat. Although I can tolerate a light red with fish (or turkey or whatever the fucking foodies tell me is OK and even preferable.) But between you and me, red wine is a pain in the ass. I only drink it because I don't like it that much, so I don't guzzle it and get drunk, and eventually, fat.

26. Favorite dessert?
Something made with fruit and not chocolate. Sweet baby Jebus when will people get over their obsession with chocolate? Oh, and all that crap about dark chocolate? Shut up. I mean it. That shit paid my college tuition. Don't start telling me you only like dark chocolate; that milk chocolate is crap; blah blah balh. I knew about real chocolate needing to contain chocolate liquor (what foodies call cacao) when I was 10 years old. So you can fucking bite me with your ooh-la-la chocolate. I can't stand it. Take that bar of Valrhona and put it where the sun don't shine.

27. The perfect nightcap?
I don't think I get this. It sounds like something Darrin would drink on Bewitched. Do people still do this? You mean, fixing yourself a drink right before you go to bed? This is not my thing at all. What a pain. I'd just have to go brush my teeth again.

Now, where did I leave those Spanx?

Tonight That Stud Muffin I Married and I are going to Yet Another Black Tie event. This is the cost of being friends with people who buy tables to these things; sometimes the bullet has our name on it.

Now, I don't know about you, but it's been a while since I had to get dressed up. So I have no idea where the usual suspects are: the long dresses, the gold shoes, the matching evening bag.

On top of which I just realized my jewelry is still away at summer camp, i.e., locked up at the bank.

So I need to stop blogging now. I'm obviously going to have skimp on jewelry, and I still need to locate the rest of my evening gear. I'm still going to have to find my contact lenses. And makeup.

And take a shower. Maybe even brush my teeth.

(Given my outlook and lack of preparation, I'm amazed anyone invites me to anything.)

Reality check.

This morning my husband told me he'd had a dream where one day had a high of 59 degrees, the next day was 89 degrees, and the day after that it was down to 40.

I told him that wasn't a dream; it was the weather in Chicago.

When you're a professional whiner, luxurious Bahamian cruises can't cramp your style

I thought I would take advantage of the free wireless internet service at the Orlando airport to copy and paste a rant from my Sent Email folder. I begin by replying to my friend's pleasure in my having to pay big bucks to read emails from her. And then I segue into a more general rant.

Aboard the Disney Wonder, At Sea

... I'm also paying to read myself. And I don't seem able to log the fuck off this expensive network, so even when I'm not using my laptop, I'm getting charged for connect time. Naturally I'm not happy about that. Sure, I enjoy throwing money around like all that water out there, but I'd like to get something for it, and unused internet connect time doesn't qualify.

The seawood wrap/massage thing I did this morning was pretty unpleasant. The seaweed wrap part of the event means you get painted all over with green goo in a chilly room, then wrapped up in one of those foil blankets they put on runners who have just completed a marathon, with some cotton blankets on top of that. Then I got a foot rub instead of the scalp massage because having just spent $45 on a shampoo/blow-out, I was damned if someone was going to rub oil all over my scalp. I suppose the foot rub was pleasant enough, but I spent the whole time thinking about the invitations I haven't yet ordered for the fundraiser I'm chairing in June.

Then I had to drag my seaweed-covered body into a shower stall while trying to keep a towel on my head to protect my hair from the shower spray, not to mention the seaweed. Where I used some kind of shower gel and then some kind of scrubby shit to get the seaweed off. I could have hung out in there for a long, long time because it was warm, unlike the room with the seaweed.

Then the masseuse gave me a back and lower leg massage. The parts where I was lying on my stomach were not excruciating, but not comfortable, either, since my boobs got in the way, and I couldn't really breathe with my face on a terrycloth-covered donut. I think my head ended up a bit lower than my torso, and my sinuses took the opportunity to fill. So there I was, mouth breathing and trying to prop my head up while holding my breasts off the table. And then, the masseuse found some knotted muscles and beat them up for a while, and then, when that wasn't enough torment for her to inflict, she went at my right scapular like a terrier with a bone.

I suppose I ended up all relaxed and shit, but it's been an hour and I'm already back to my usual tense self, complete with my signature loudly crackling shoulder joints. Not to mention that I'm supposed to be drinking water to help flush out toxins, but I hate water, so I'm on my second latte. I figure I might as well give the water some more toxins to flush, in case I they all came out in the seaweed wrap.

So the relaxed/detoxed effects lasted all of twenty minutes--but what's a girl to do? I suppose I should just stop typing and mousing and using the internet. Also, I guess I should knock off sitting upright, brushing my teeth, or using my facial muscles in any way whatsoever.

Because basically, everything I like to do makes me tense. Life makes me tense. Tense is my natural state.

But natural is good, right? So what's with all the seaweed and oil? I feel like a cross between a maki roll and one of those shallow saucers they fill with oil in"Italian" restaurants because they don't think you like butter with your bread. Because, honestly, more oil please; I simply can't get enough of the stuff. Don't stint, JUST POUR SOME MORE ON.

And another thing. Do they all absolutely have to try to sell me seaweed bath salts and cellulite oil and other ridiculously unscientific mumbo-jumbo-laden overpriced products?

Are you getting the idea that I loathe spa services?

Well, I bought some AHA cream and some night cream. And a bottle of some kind of greeze (grease with a Southern accent) for my cuticles and heels and even hair, should I become emboldened to greeze up my head with it (only to have to spend an hour in the shower scrubbing it out ...)

All in all between the services, the tips, the products, and the gold Disney Cruise charm and chain I bought myself because I fucking felt like it, plus the expensive internet time I can't manage to turn off, I expect I added about $1,000 to our credit cards.

ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

xxx,
Name Withheld Upon Request

p.s. It's been an hour and a half and I'm still slippery.

I, Curmudgeon

Middle age rocks. Or is that an oxymoron? Maybe it is, but let me tell you, being an old broad is liberating. I get to be as crabby as I want. I get to be uninterested in stuff that bores me. Which I always was, but now I let it show. And I love it. Because maybe I don't get enough sleep, but some things just don't seem worth the bother:

1. That whole coffee-house, espresso, latte, cappucino thing. I'll stick to a cup of coffee. American style.

2. Trying to do a decent job styling my hair. From now on, when I really need to look good, I'll let the professionals handle it. The rest of the time, I'll look like dog vomit. This is bad news for all of you out there--as well as local property values--but I don't care. I'll just avert my eyes whenever I pass a mirror.

3. Eating food I don't like. For example, I hate food that used to be alive when it's served cooked, but very, very rare. This especially applies to duck. From now on, I won't eat it. I won't even pretend to try to eat it. If the waiter wants to know why I'm ignoring the pulpy lump of protein on my plate, I'll tell him, "My gorge just rose."

4. Mass culture. "Bah, humbug" to movies, best-selling books, and popular music. If anyone asks me whether I've seen any good movies lately, I'll answer, "No, thank God." OK, my doctoral dissertation was about film, but it was silent film. I could talk your heads off about D. W. Griffith, but I couldn't care less about anything playing in the movie theaters now. Or what's on television. Or popular music. No, I didn't watch the Academy Awards. Or the Grammies. (I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Blackbird, and your posts about Survivor, but I don't know what you're talking about.) Admittedly, it makes it difficult to navigate the average conversation. For example, when I'm at the salon getting my hair done (see number 2) I find it hard to converse with the woman wielding the hair-dryer. I solved this by finding a hair-dryer-wielder who doesn't try to make conversation. Because--to be frank--I find myself far more interesting than the average hair-dryer-wielder.

5. Local politics. There is some kind of school budget referendum on the horizon. I've decided to ask my pal Fiddledeedee what it's about, and then vote accordingly.

6. My blog numbers are down. Way down. I DON'T CARE. Come here and read about my petty little problems or don't. I'm too grumpy to be funny for you people. Why am I grumpy? Today I have even more volunteer bullshit to do. I have to go downtown and get my picture taken, and I don't have time to get my hair done, so it will look like shit. Then I have a lunch meeting where I'll probably be served some sort of undercooked protein on that annoying baby lettuce (sorry, forgot to add that to my list) and the meeting promises to be boring beyond belief. Although people will probably not be talking about television programs. So there's that.

Special -ed

I'm absolutely starving and have to go cook dinner, but I thought I'd meander on for a little bit about this thing I noticed several times on my way to and from Florida.

You see, there are quite a [SEE ROCK CITY] number of billboards [SEE ROCK CITY] to be seen on a drive [SEE ROCK CITY] of that length, so I thought I'd try to point [SEE ROCK CITY] out a little solecism that is frankly [SEE ROCK CITY] driving me crazy.

It's this. When you use a compound like "iced tea" or "old-fashioned," you don't leave off the final "ed." It's not "ice tea" or "old fashion." Please do not paint a phrase like "Enjoy our old fashion country cooking!" in red letters three feet high on a yellow background and expect me, the erstwhile English major and queen of punctuation (in case you hadn't noticed) to continue driving as if nothing had happened.

You really do not want me driving 80 miles an hour down your road in the mental state produced by such flagrant grammatical errors. I can not answer for my behavior when I see such vivid proof that the barbarians finally really are at the gate.

Stuckey's--this means YOU.