Trailer Trash Tudors!

I just finished watching Disc 1 of the Showtime Series "The Tudor's" Starring Jonathon Rhys-Meyers. I was gagging and retching through the entire thing! I actually went and cancelled the rest of the discs in the series because watching them would be a waste of my time.

I know by now not to expect an historically accurate rendering of facts, garments or props, but this production went beyond my lowered expectations! It was the Trailer Trash Tudors!

I could go into a Tudor Tantrum about how much this plot-less mess sucked. But I won't.

It's not worth the energy to lambaste the lingerie-based costumes (or lack of! Everyone seems determined to spend at least 15 minutes of airtime naked from the waist up, especially the women), the total lack of historical accuracy or the shallow portrayals of what were fascinating, multi-faceted and sometimes deeply flawed individuals.

Instead, I'll just do a visual sum-up of this too-modern soulless mess

Here we have "Margaret" Tudor. Actually, her name was Mary, Margaret was her older sister but why let facts like that get in the way? Showtime's "The Tudor's" had Margaret romping around without headgear in off-shoulder Scarlet O'Hara outfits throwing bitch-fits while acting slutty and haughty...one presumes in order to depict that she was royal? And regal? In the tv show she marries the King of Portugal and then smothers him with a pillow in his bed.

div>

What IS this???

The REAL Mary Tudor was beloved of her brother Henry, and was married to the King of France. Not Portugal. No murder was committed and when he died a natural death she returned home to marry Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk in a private wedding ceremony. She lived happily ever after until she died.

By all accounts she was a sweet, seemly Tudor woman of her day: pious, chaste and good.

Here she is in her wedding portrait with Charles Brandon: I think this says it all.

Sometimes a Great Notion

In my mind it looked so good! A carved rubber stamp of a butternut squash, with the word squash stamped next to it. Simple. Rustic. Really store-bought looking! Alas, it didn't work quite that way. The cards just look too plain and I had to scrap them. Maybe I can reuse the squashed parts some place else down the line. I loved the carving of the squash itself, though! That turned out cute.

I said before I love all things Autumn and I really love Halloween. I know, I know, not a CHRISTIAN holiday, but do all our holidays have to be Christ-centric? Why can't we dress up like scary things (costumes of Dubya Bush, for instance) and go out in the night and beg candy from total strangers? I love it! What a concept!

I reject the entire idea that Halloween is satanic. Frankly, it has more to do with dead people than the devil. Being Dead is not satanic! It's "All Hallow's Eve," the night that all the dead people get to have a little break from the grave to get up and stretch their limbs a bit.

Back in the day, people thought that the dead just hung out in their graves, presumably knitting cobwebs into sweaters and mittens, until the final Judgement Day when the Bugle sounds. They saw nothing wrong with letting dead folks get up one night a year and roam around moaning and wailing.

Lets remember that our beloved Christmas Tree has some pretty murky roots! It's a pagan symbol whose original 'burning human sacrifice' origins have long ago morphed into a lovely symbol of life and light on Christmas Day; a place for us to gather and sing carols, unwrap presents and sip hot toddies and eggnog.

So I say humbug to those who shun Halloween and act like their little snooty noses will fall off if asked to put out a bowl of candy or carve a pumpkin. Halloween has morphed as well! It's about decorating, playing dress ups and eating.

Which are the themes of my life, after all.

Stranger Than Fiction

I was out and about, driving along listening to the radio and doing the bobblehead dance. As I was sitting at a stop sign I noticed this blind man resting on his front steps. He had his white and red cane leaning on his leg right next to him. I saw that he had been raking leaves and the rake was leaning up against the porch right beside him.

And then I saw that the rake was also white and red, just like the cane. Obviously, a rake for the blind.

And then with my mathematical mind and powers of deduction and logical reasoning, I thought to myself, "Oh! I bet his family painted that rake white and red for him so he could easily see which one was his in the pile of rakes."

Scary Ghostie-Boo!

Well, here it is, almost time for my favorite fall holiday. I like Halloween so much more than Thanksgiving. After all, Thanksgiving is just about Turkey. Halloween is about CANDY CORN. Especially that newest flavor by Brach's. It's called Caramel Candy Corn and it tastes like autumn at the county fair.


Halloween is also about really old, weird Halloween Ephemera. Like this one:

Those kids look like they've just been drained of all blood. Or maybe it's their energy that is drained, fueling the glowing effulgence of that pumpkin head. So their Mom gets to go trick-or-treating in a costume but they have to wear everyday clothing?

Or this one:

On Halloween Strange Sights are Seen. Yeah, no kidding! What's with her head hanging on a clothesline? And is she getting ready to set fire to that rope running through her eyeballs? I'd like to own that kimono, though.

And this one is a favorite. Isn't it Merry? BACK AWAY FROM THE PUMPKIN's MOUTH, Little Tommy!

And can anyone explain this? Are they alien space gourds with pea pod arms and legs? And why is that woman apparently hanging out in the vacuum of space without an oxygen apparatus?

Well, my birthday went well! I had a lot of phone calls, lovely cards, and a sushi lunch with my stockbroker friend who filled me in on the gruesome trends-to-come once we hit rock bottom with this financial crisis.

After lunch, as I was getting out of the car, he said, "Happy 52nd Birthday! And you said you'd never live past 40!"

To which I replied, "And I Didn't!"

The Switch to Little

Well, I gave myself a very good birthday present today, although many of you will wonder 'Waaaaz UP?" I called the office and asked to be relieved of the duty of Driving Miss Kitty. You know I just talk about all the fun and funny things but there is plenty of negativity and personal attacks and verbal abuse coming from this stubborn, spoiled, invested-in-being-enabled woman.

I don't feel like a ton of bricks has been lifted off me YET, but I will after Tuesday Next because that is when I do the orientation for the next caregiver. God Rest her Soul.

So in parting, Miss Kitty, without knowing it, said something quite funny that was quite the change from her usually BIG, BIG fixation on all things BIG.

She said, "That lady Debbie has a little bit, just a little bit of dementia."
"Do you really think she does?" I asked.
"Yes" Miss Kitty replied, "She drives a little, LITTLE car."
****
I would have said it was because she pulls into the neighbor's driveway to put on her sunglasses before backing out and driving off to her destination, but then I'm just a little, LITTLE bit relieved not to have to carry on such conversations anymore!!!

Becoming Agitated: A Movie Review

As an early birthday present, I was given a membership to Netflix! I was so delirious I instantly watched one of the free online movies because I intend to take FULL advantage of all the free movies even if watching them online means they are herky-jerky and the sound gets funky.

What do I care? It's not like I watch Action Flicks!

And my first movie was Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway. Now, I happen to like her. She's clean and wholesome and has lovely eyes and lips and a very clear complexion. I could imagine her playing the role of the young Jane Austen with dignity and style. And she did, for the most part. But....and this is a BIG BUTT...

For the entire movie she seemed to be the only person dressed in Napoleonic 1810 period clothing. Everyone else was dressed in clothing from the late 1700's. And believe me, those 10-20 years makes a HUGE difference, just as it does today. Picture yourself walking down the street in full 1980's regalia and you will see instantly what I mean. Because in the 80's I wore purple tuxedo jackets with the sleeves shoved up to my elbows, black stretch-pants tights and high-collar silk shirts with giant brooches.

So instead of looking like THIS:

She looked like This:

Even though the costumer got it right for everyone else, they just HAD to make poor Jane stick out like a sore thumb. I guess they wanted her to look like Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice who seemed to spend the entire movie stomping around in an old bathrobe and a gauze stick-dress with no chemise:

What is UP with that???

At the ball Jane looked like THIS: Notice how in the background the other guests are dressed in the same era clothing which is obviously NOT the era Jane is dressed from!

And sitting on the Front Porch we have THIS:

There's Jane, schlumped in the background with hideous posture and no corset. She should be looking like THIS on an outing such as a family picnic or to watch the fellas play cricket:

But instead, she seems to be wearing the 1795 version of the string bikini:

Spaghetti Straps and a white cotton undershirt???

Don't even get me started on the hair.

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died at 47 years of age in 1817. She would have been wearing her hair like this, for the most part, as well as dressed like this: But instead, at the end of the movie, they had Anne Hathaway's Jane wearing THIS EXACT HAIRDO:

So I hated the movie.

One of Life's Little Mysteries

I've been fiddling around with a place called http://www.scrapblog.com/ for all morning and could get nowhere with it. I want to be able to do creative headers and change my background once in a while but I can't get blogger to let me pick my OWN background. I wanted to use things like THIS:

And THIS:

Or THIS:
And later on, after my birthday hoopla, ones like THIS:
And THIS:
But I give up. I can't get it to work so my blog background will have to stay white for the time being.

Speaking of WHITES...here is a mystery.

I wash my clothes every Wednesday because that is the only day I have both the time and access to the washer without someone else hoarding it first.

If you can do math, which I can't, you can pretty much figure that in seven days there will be seven white washcloths and 7 pairs of white undies to be washed and dried. Along with a couple pairs of colored undies for evening dinner party undergarments.

But today as I was folding my clothes, I counted 18 pairs of white undies and 4 pairs of colored undies in the pile. But just 7 washcloths.

That's like 2.8 pairs of undies per day. Since there is no such thing as an eighth of a pair of undies (see previous post) at least not WEARABLY so, I can round up to 3 pairs of undies a day or down to 2 pairs of undies a day.

But I have NO MEMORY of changing my panties twice or thrice a day for the last 7 days. Am I running home at noon and donning a fresh pair? Did I go on one long bender of a panty-changing spree but was so drunk on cotton fibers that I had a black-out afterwards so I forgot?

I really have no idea. You can leave suggestions in the comments section if you can figure it out for me.

Numbers

I was speaking with a friend who recently opened a dog boarding kennel. He is also a stockbroker and has one of those analytical/mathematical minds. I always go to him for financial advice and to discuss trends. (i.e: I complain about how broke I am and he complains about the Bush Administration)

I asked him how the kennel is doing during these trying times and he said, "Well, I averaged 6.8 dogs a day last month but I need 8 dogs a day to break even."

"How do you board an eighth of a dog?" I asked, "Did someone just leave you the head?"

As if explaining to an idiot or an eighth of a child he launched into a simplistic analysis of estimates and averages. But I was having none of it! I told him, "I think you should change the name to Heads or Tails But Not Both Boarding Kennel for Partial Dogs."

There was a brief pause and then my clever friend said, "Keep it up and you'll be getting an eighth of a birthday present!"

Like Sarah Palin's Hair

I had a day exactly like Sarah Palin's hair. A rats nest of Mess in the back, and hanging in greasy strings down my forehead in the front, obscuring my vision. Yep, that just sums it up!!!

The ultimate bed-head kind of day.First off, my printer DIED. Yes, another one bites the dust. I've owned 2 computers in my lifetime and during that same span I've gone through 7 or 8 printers. And these aren't cheap babies, either!

In the midst of printing out a time-sensitive document (doesn't that sound awesome and virtual?) (Actually it was a birthday card, ha-ha) I noticed that the printer was no longer making thunking noises. Or scritching noises.

Thunk. Scritch. Thunk. Scritch. Dead Silence.

I tried to reboot, unplug and replug, threaten and cajole but nothing worked. The printer had gone to it's Great Beyond.

Scrutinizing my harried schedule for the day, I realized that if I wanted to avoid the horrid Sunday is Mexican Father Day at Walmart, I had better just head on over there at 7:00 am before going to work.

For those not in the know or not from the West Coast, it is standard operating procedure for Hispanic Men to bring their litters of children to the Walmart on Sunday afternoon's and just turn them loose to romp and play in the aisles. My guess is that it's the free version of taking them to Disneyland. They get to play with all the toys with no consequences if they break them or leave them strewn about the floor; they get to race through the aisles knocking the slow and plodding into the $5 DVD bins; they get to squirt each other with shaken orange soda bottles and SCREAM!!! They do a lot of screaming.

So there I was at 7 am with my broken printer standing in line behind a woman who had a giant plastic zippered bag like comforters or bedding come in, FILLED to capacity with chatcke's she was returning. My first thought was that she knocked over a Walmart truck in some kind of midnight heist, but in fact she had receipts for each item she was returning. Separate receipts. Which she had to dig through in order to match them up with the appropriate return.

She was returning things like a paper towel holder. And a box of bobby pins. And a brown bathroom rug and a brown bathroom mat. And some crackers. And some kiddy socks. My guess is she had about 20 items, and right in the middle of this drama she abruptly left the window, and raced off into the store to find an item so that it could be scanned for the appropriate code.

I was staring at my cell phony, realizing that my time was running thin when she returned with towel in hand and her business was concluded.

My transaction took mere moments because I had no box and no receipt. I know, I know, you are supposed to keep those things but I don't. Basically I was turned down flat AND to top it off she wouldn't even throw the useless printer away for me. She said, "What if you came back later and wanted to dig it out of the garbage? We can't be responsible for that."

AS IF!!! Like who would want to come back later and dig something out of the garbage?

So I hauled the printer outside of the store and threw it into the garbage can by the front door and proceeded to race back in and buy the quickest, cheapest printer I could grab and be on my way.

I had 15 minutes to go before I would be late so I raced at incredible speeds down the freeway and through the backstreets to my client's house.

Except when I got to her street it was cordoned off with a big sign that said, "Closed for the Cowtown Marathon". What the *!*%&#@???

I was doomed. There appeared to be one thousand slow moving people strolling aimlessly down the center of the street headed who knows where. It was more like a Cowpoke Marathon if you ask me.

Now, Land Park is an area of town where the streets go bendy-bendy. There is no such thing as just going around the block or taking a parallel street to get close to where you need to be. Streets veer off in all directions and intersect each other in 5 way stops. It's designed to Hex the Outsiders, is my guess. Because Land Parkian's don't take kindly to folks they don't KNOW coming around their town.

After sneaking through an abandoned road barrier and almost running down a small childlike volunteer who was too puny to really man her post, I was able to get within a block of my destination. But I was thwarted by a very fat copper with a BIG walkie-talkie. You know, the kind that likes to RUN things in ULTIMATE control. So I pulled out my best 'feeble female' impersonation and told him that I simply HAD to get to work because an elderly woman was depending on me for her very existance and I pointed to her front door and said, "It's just RIGHT there! And I need to pull into the driveway for emergency purposes."

He looked like he was about to tell me no, but since there weren't any cowpoker's on the block at that moment he let me mosy on down to her driveway.

I punched in the number for the teletime card with moments to spare.

After work I raced home to unpack and install my new cheap-ass printer. Only to discover that it appeared to be missing the cable that connects the printer to the computer. Reading the fine print inside the box, I saw where it read, "If this device does not come with a USB cable, you must purchase one seperately." Like: don't they KNOW? When they print up the boxes and the booklets, they don't KNOW whether they are going to include a USB cable? Like, maybe on a WHIM they will and maybe they won't???

Oh. I said "Oh."

Because that's when it struck me. The garbage. Back at Walmart. Wherein resides my USB cable in perfect condition which I threw away because I wouldn't possibly need that old thing ever again since a new printer would come with it's own new cable, because who in their right mind would ever need to go and rootle around in the walmart garbage in order to retrieve something he or she had thrown away?

Someone having a Sarah Palin's Hair kind of day, that's who!!!!

Seasons Change And So Do My Linens...You Need Not Wonder Why

Ah! The First of October! Only 17 days until I turn 52! Scary...and Oh So Real.
And I am itching to get rid of the summer decor! I looked at my bedroom this morning and thought...this crisp summer white needs to go hibernate. Time for a warm, rich, winter feel to my slumbers. So I changed THIS:


To THIS:

But not quite in the blink of an eye. Because I stored all my quilts UNDER the mattress this year and of course this one was on the very bottom layer. But I love my bedroom so it was worth it.

And now a word from the Big Baby Bibliodatum:

Last week Miss Kitty and I went to buy yet another baby gift. This time, it was for a BIG baby. Not your ordinary wee little one, but a Big Whopping Giant Baby. Although Kitty had not yet seen or met this Behemoth, she assured me that it was TWICE the size of the last little baby we bought for, and at the same age.

So instead of shopping in the Newborn-3 months category I upped us to the 3-6 months category, shuddering to think what giving birth to a six month old sized baby must have done to the mother.

After a slight brangle over the fact that Miss Kitty does not like footed sleepers because it makes it too hard for the baby to walk on hardwood floors--because you know how newborns like to creep around in the night like Chuckie--we finally decided upon a very cute little velour onesie.

Lo and Behold! Yesterday when I went to pick up Miss Kitty, she informed me proudly that the outfit we chose was MUCH too small for the Big Baby.

Which just goes to show that sometimes in life the baby really is BIG.