Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Part 1

I was talking with a friend over the weekend and she was telling me about all of her exploits in the town where she grew up. As the daughter of a police officer, she grew up in a very blue collar household. Yet all around her, friends had access to amazing privileges and luxuries that seemed disproportionate to the working class neighborhood that they hailed from. As a close friend to many of these girls, my friend got to tag along for some very cool stuff. Front row seats, limo rides, back stage passes. The stuff that teenage dreams are made of. As a kid, she never questioned why these things were available to her friends. Many years later, long after they lost touch, she connected the dots and realized that her friends were "connected". For those of you that are slow on the uptake, think Goodfellas.

Her story left me reflecting on my own teenage past and some of the experiences that I had. As I looked at them in retrospect, I tried to imagine what they would sound like to someone who did not experience them firsthand. Maybe they were worth telling.

Here's one of them -

When I was 19, my mom and her friend Louise made the decision to open up a hair salon. Louise was a sharp wheeler and dealer, and she had located an empty salon on the fringes of a bad neighborhood, where the equipment had been left behind a prior owner (who left in a hurry) and the rent was reasonable. So, with a little bit of work, some cleaning and painting, we had ourselves a salon.

I had been working in salons before I even graduated from beauty school, so I already had three years of experience under my belt when my mom and Louise offered me the position of salon manager. It's funny, I had no fear or concerns about running the salon. I walked right up to it and faced it squarely, like the cocky little shit that I was. I just went ahead and did the same things that I had seen half a dozen salon owners and managers do in the places that I had worked. I ordered supplies, placed ads in the Pennysaver, answered the phone in my best faux -professional voice and dove right into the business of day to day operations of the salon.

Things were very quiet for the first few weeks of business. We would get the occasional lookie loo peeking in the window to see what was going on, but it wasn't until my mother and Louise's started sending their co-workers to the salon that things started to pick up. I would give them haircuts, color and perms at a discount rate and the locals, seeing the activity in the salon, started to wander in. After a couple of months, I began to develop a strong following. I did all kinds of hair, but I really caught on with the local teenage boys in hair metal bands (Hey, it was the eighties, I cut a lot of mullets too. Dark times in hair, I tell ya). Once they knew they could trust me to keep their hair long, the way they liked it and that I was willing to experiment pretty wildly with color and other chemical services, they sent all their long haired friends my way. But because of the marginal location, I never built up enough clientele to warrant having another hairdresser on staff. You know what they say about location, location, location? Well they can't say it enough. It's not a cliche, it's a FACT.

After a year had passed, the landlord raised the rent. We were just barely meeting our overhead with the business that I was doing. On a couple of occasions, my mom and Louise had to dig into their pockets to cover expenses. We clearly needed to bring more money in. But what could we do?

A couple of my friends were in a band and they were always at the shop, getting their hair done and hanging out. One night one of them asked me if we had a basement. I said that we did and we locked the shop, went out the back door, and down into the basement to explore. The salon was located in a strip mall, which meant there was one external set of steps behind the row of stores which accessed the basement. These steps led to a common area, then each storefront had a private, locked area that lined up under their space. We unlocked the door to our private room and flicked on the light. To our surprise, the room was empty, fairly clean and had electrical outlets along the walls. At that moment, an idea was born.

Part II Wednesday - Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Things Get a little Shady

You Can't Tame a Tiger

I have always loved animals. Not loved in the biblical sense, you understand, but in the "I love my pet" sense. From the time that I was very young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. But somewhere along the way, I realized that Vets have to euthanize animals. I knew that I would never be able to do that, even if it were for the good of the animal. After that point, all career aspirations of any kind, pretty much died.

Throughout my first sixteen years of life, I had a menagerie of pets that would rival most pet shops; gerbils, hamsters, mice, rats, rabbits, parakeets, cats, dogs, turtles and fish. Not all at once, but some simultaneously. The number of times that I begged my mother for some new pet or another, is truly astronomical. For all the times she said yes (and she said yes a lot), she had already said no ten times prior. As I got older and our living arrangements changed, my pets got less exotic and less labor intensive, but there was always a dog and/or a cat in our household.

So why do I tell you this? Because as unfathomable as this is to me, I HATE my mother's cat. Not just a mild dislike of the animal, like it annoys me or shows cat-like indifference to me, so I could take it or leave it. No, I hate this little shit like nobodies business. How, you ask, could such an inveterate animal lover hate a cute and furry creature? Oh, I'll tell you why. This is the story of Tiger. . .

About two years ago, a couple of landscapers found a three day old kitten. Not knowing what to do with it, they knocked on my mother's door. The reason they chose her door is because, by the number of felines lazing about on her property, she was clearly a cat lady. Whether or not she was crazy was about to be proven out in their conversation.

They wanted to know if she knew what to do with an abandoned, new-born kitten. This thing was almost embryonic. Eyes still shut, pink and squirming. Because I had been a magnet for abandoned wildlife throughout my youth, she knew that it would need bottle feedings and a something warm to cuddle with. Against her better judgement (Crazy, party of one!), she took this helpless little creature in, and with the help of a local vet and some cat rescue people, she bottle fed this little kitty and he survived. Not only did he survive, he thrived and grew into the most magnificently beautiful grey on grey tabby cat that I had ever seen. The problem was, he didn't take kindly to anyone other than my mother.

My first meeting with the little fella was when he was a few weeks old. Because of his round the clock feedings, my mother carried him in a little travel cage wherever she went. Whenever anyone other than my mother approached the cage, he wigged out. Crying, hissing, backing up. My mother would immediately go and soothe him, talking sweetly to him until he calmed down. It was almost like he got rewarded for his anti-social behavior. Fast forward a few more months and he's out of his cage, but he's randomly attacking all the other cats AND the humans. Anyone who dared to walk past his perch on the kitchen chair would be hissed at and sliced to ribbons if within his razor clawed reach.

I tried to tell my mom that this was not normal and was not likely to get better with all the coddling and special attention that he got. He attacked everyone - men, women, children, other cats, the UPS man, strangers and friendlies. It got so bad that after a while, he had to be hidden in the basement like Sloth in the Goonies. He was our "special" cat that's not suitable for company. It was beyond my comprehension that an animal could so dislike people, yet greedily demand the affections and attention of my mother. And since when did a furry mammal not like me? I was the girl that rescued chained pit bulls in the rain and took them to doggy halfway houses for rehabilitation. I was the pied-bloody-piper dammit. What right did he have to not like ME?

This little effer clearly had my nose out of joint, but he also had me worried. How was she going to manage his bad behavior for the next 17 years? Cats aren't like goldfish. They have lifespan. What was she going to do, pass out a box of band aids and a tube of Neosporin to every visitor that came in the house? She'd never be able to go away because he was so imprinted on her and he didn't really tolerate her husband. The situation seemed unmanageable to me. In my mind this cat needed to be on kitty Prozac or (I still can't believe I said the word) euthanized. Once I said it, I knew I didn't mean it, but he did need a radical intervention.

I managed to convince my mother that she needed to talk to a vet about psych meds for this little demon spawn. But after a long conversation with the vet, my mom decided that she couldn't drug him. Of course I'm thinking, oh please, step aside and let me. But she wasn't having it.

It's two years later and Tiger has grown into a truly beautiful cat. He's a big ol tom cat, but damned if he isn't pretty. He is slightly more tolerant of people and less likely to swat at random, although she still has to lock him in the basement when she has company. I just admire him from a distance as I still get offended when I get too close to him and he hisses. Though I don't want to see him euthanized, there's still a little part of me that wants to wrap a ten milligram Valium in a hunk of tuna and spend an hour or so petting him. Because, not only would I like to love him, I'd love to pretend that he likes me. Even a little.

You Found Me HOW?!?

Can we geek-out for a second here? I just need to profess my love for Google Analytics. Without it, I would probably not have even half a clue as to how many bent people there are out on the Internet.

I can remember back in the early days of the Internet, when my friend Mare and I would get on our computers and get on the phone and just search for the most insane stuff. We would go back and forth trying to out-do each other with outrageous searches. This was back in the mid/late 90's and we were naive about the what the Internet was, its power and what it would become. We very innocently searched for things like animal sex and fetish stuff, just to see how absurd we had to be before we stopped getting matches. Even then, our most insane searches NEVER came up empty.

13 years later, times are very different. I would not dream of searching for anything even vaguely sexual, even in jest, for all of the spy ware, viruses and pop-ups that are associated with that. No longer naive, I now know better. However, there are clearly many folks that are still doing some crazy-ass searches out there and somehow they are hitting my blog. My sweet, innocent, no worse than PG rated blog. Don't they know that big brother (or at least big Diary) is watching?

Thanks to Google Analytics, I can share some of the stranger keyword searches that brought people to my blog. These are the actual search strings that people entered into a search engine where my blog somehow made the results list. Some of them I can sorta figure out, others leave me speechless, yet I still managed to comment on almost all of them.

liquor into prom - Sorry Sparky. No real tips here.
andrew zimmern naked pics - Never occurred to me that ANYONE would be looking for this until I saw this keyword search . . . TWICE!
bathroom mad - It's more of a metaphor than an actual brooding toilet. I can tell you with confidence that my vanity, toilet and shower and I are on excellent terms.
bathroom porm - Don't know what this is, but I maybe it involves a bidet, an ear of corm and a sheep that is shorm.
bathroom with clouds in floor - In my eyes? Maybe. In the floor? Never.
brother suck sister e mom in bath room - This one is not only foul (Aristocrats, anyone?), it is also foreign. What's with the e Guiseppe? The rest of the friggin search is in English!
butterschoch bath room tile - I am sure that I got this one because I was giving away a free dictionary.

can you bring guests to the mohegan sun sports bar yankee stadium - Well, I don't know. I suppose you can if you don't mind buying them 16 dollar drinks served in plastic cups.

granny tranny - I did have a favorite comment that mentioned this, so I guess that was the link. Can you just picture it. . . A grey wig, Adams apple, five o'clock shadow, granny panties and the man business tucked WAAAYY back. Imagine the poor lost soul that is actively looking for this. More importantly, can you imagine their grave disappointment when they landed here?
how many days in june did it rain in ny Last count, I heard 19.
how much do you hate yard work? _Uh, hello? I hate it massively. Haven't you been reading?
long island city hookers 2009 - Hola Fleet Week. Me Llama es Diario.
long island tranny hookers - Do you really think Biff and Muffy would allow such a thing in the Hamptons? I mean really? Tranny Hookers are so down market.

mareate junk - Nope. I got nothin.
mom and son in bathroom stall and stinkies movie - Whoever you are, I beg of you, please get help.
photos of miley cyrus in the shawer but naked on clous - Another one of our dictionary winners!
rolling your eyes, hairy eyeball, the stink eye - All habits I am trying to break.
tranny hookers pennsylvania - Apparently not only Biff and Muffy have to fight off the riff-raff.
yardwork naked pics - This just sounds unappealing and dangerous. What man in his right mind would risk his dingle dangle to be photographed naked with a hedge trimmer?

There were actually more that were so offensive, that I wouldn't repeat them here. On one hand it's pretty funny, but on the other hand it's pretty disturbing. I am going to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are new computer owners, just like Mare and I were over 13 years ago, testing the limits of the Internet. A word to the wise, there is no limit. If you don't believe me, hop over to this. It's absolutely filthy. Go ahead, I'll wait. (Taps foot impatiently. Glances at watch.) See? Do you see what I mean? Now go wash your eyeballs out with soap. You shouldn't have been looking at that. Dirty girl (or guy)!

Tag! I'm It!

Holy Shnikes! I've been tagged!



Being that I am a total doofus and don't really know what a "Meme" or a "tag" really is (at least not any tag that doesn't have a price on it), I am just going to try to dutifully follow the instructions that Lin at Duck and Wheel with String has left me over at her place. She says to (and I'm quoting here, hence the quotation marks) "open the first file in your photo collection and post the tenth photo."



OK. Here goes. Drum roll please. Oh, I hope It's not one of my collection of naked pictures of Andrew Zimmern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ummm. Well. Wait a minute. This is not what you think it is. So before you break out your taunts and get all in my facial, let me just explain that I put this picture in my folder to use in a post that I was writing about teen angst. Of course, I can't link you to that post because I took it down. No. Really. I had a total change of heart about the post and I took it down.


You can think what you want, I totally don't like Edward Cullen. I don't even like him a little. What, with those intense amber eyes and sparkly skin that glistens in the sun like a million diamonds, intentionally messy hair that's supposed to look unintentionally messy, tight jeans and brooding, handsome face? That's supposed to be attractive? Nope. Never even noticed him a little.



What? Oh you think so? (puts thumbs together to create a W with fingers) Fine! Whatever! Thanks a lot Lin! This is going to totally ruin my rep!

A Tale of Three Dads

There is no doubt about it, Dave is the more nurturing of the two of us. I see it in the way he deals with the kids when they are sick and the way that he deals with me. I have always felt like I am missing a female gene, because it took me so long to want to have kids and once I had them, I felt very inept handling them. Not Dave though. He held our children with tremendous confidence from day one. Where as I handled them like they were made of finely spun glass, he handled them like a football player cradles a ball. His sureness gave me the time to find my own confidence, which came through experience and learning.

I've often wondered whether this difference in us is nature or nurture. As the youngest of five children (by 11 years), he had nine nieces and nephews by the time our first child was born. I was the oldest of two children and one of the first of my friends to have kids, so I didn't have any practice. But then again, I didn't really have interest either. To this day, wherever we go, babies stare Dave down. It's almost like they are daring him to interact with them and when he does, it usually results in giggles and smiles on both sides.

My own dad is probably more like me in the baby-friendliness department, but some of the better traits that I have come from him. He's something of a modern day renaissance man, equally at home reading poetry and skeet shooting, building furniture and cooking dinner, restoring antique cars and singing doo-wop hits of the fifties. The fact that I have a tiny fraction of his ingenuity helps me to be feel confident in situations where I might otherwise falter.

My brother has a son who was born a little more than a year after my second child. He is a quirky and funny little guy and I completely adore him. There are so many things that he does that remind me of my brother. Their close relationship is a joy to watch and I know that it is the reason for their similarity. My brother is a dedicated player and fan of sports, but even so, he never pushed his son into any interests that he did not feel a connection to . And while I know that he would have been the ideal little league coach, he has always respected his son for who he is and just lets him be.

So on Father's Day I offer this tribute to three of the dads that have made an impact on my life.
There have been many others that I have admired; grandfathers, stepfathers, neighbors and friends, far more than I could write about in this small space. But I wish all of them the happiest of Father's Days and appreciate what they have brought to my life.

Well, that's it for the sentimentality. I believe this puts me over my annual quota. I'll be back early in the week with more of the snark and crankiness that is characteristic of this blog. For today you have to take the sweet, the reverent, the appreciative. Which, while out of character for me, is not entirely implausible. Is it?

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Happy Birthday Bubble Boy!

THE AFTERMATH

After a solid week of obsessively monitoring the weather to figure out what to do about Joey's pool party/BBQ birthday, we made the decision to cancel with his friends and go forward with the family portion of the party. On Friday morning we sent Joey to school with rain date invitations for his friends for next weekend and we moved forward with the cleaning, cooking and preparation that it would take to entertain 25 of the 40 guests originally planned for. Friday was kind enough to give us a brief peek of sun so that we could mow the lawn and set up the gazebo and canopies that would make our back yard look like a tent city.

At around 1:00 it was clear to us that Joey wasn't feeling well. He stayed in bed and did not call his friends, text obsessively or have interest in his guitar lesson. "Too tired" he said. We both agreed that he would rest up for the party. At around 3:30, we discovered that Joey was sleeping in his room. Sleeping during the day almost always means that he's sick. We decided to take his temperature, and sure enough, it was 101.

There had been 40 confirmed cases of swine flu in Joey's school district and the propaganda that they had been posting had everyone paranoid. We couldn't subject everyone to a potential case of H1N1. But at this point, 25 people were already en route to our house and no amount of manic dialing could get us in touch with all of them in time. We decided to sequester the boy and offer full disclosure before anyone entered the house, offering that we would not be offended by anyone that did not want to come in.

Guests began arriving at 4:00 PM and not a one of them was the least bit wigged out by Joey's illness. However, knowing that my 89 year old mother-in-law was coming as well as folks who had contact with immune supressed loved ones, we made Joey keep his distance.

We carried on and grilled mass quantities of meat and vegetables in the pouring rain. I brought Joey his food in his room, which he actually liked because he is not allowed to eat up there. I was worried about how he'd feel about being out of the action, but he was OK with it. He still got all of his presents as well as endless cans of soda, chips and other food up in his room. Besides, who were we kidding? This was his family party, so he would have still spent 95% of the day locked in his room playing XBox anyway. We recognize that he is 13 and has all of the priorities of a 13 year old:

Friends, Guitar/Band, Games, TV, Girls, Food, Family (in that order). Give it one more year and girls will jump to the front of the line, family will stay firmly in last place, I'm sure.

When it came time to blow out the candles, we opted not to go for the spit on the cake routine, and sang to Joey and held up a Scripto lighter for him to blow out about six feet away from the assortment of cakes. Again, not insulted, Joey happily carried a huge hunk of Oreos and Cream icecream cake to his room.

Other than the isolation of Typhoid Joey, it was one of our usual family parties. We played music, people danced (not me, let's not get crazy), people drank (a lot), we ate like pigs and ended the night at 1:00 am after the last of the die-hard poker players started to fade. And try as I might have to insight my relatives by sporting 4" purple plastic hoop earrings and NEON Yellow and silver sparkle toe nail polish, rumors of my off hours hookin never made it above a whisper.

When I woke the next morning, the party lights were still lit in the gazebo. This was a minor issue compared to some of the other things that I found. They say it's not a party until something gets broken. If this is the hallmark of success, then Bubble Boy's birthday was the best party since Diddy's last White Party in the Hamptons.

I found these things during the party:

A mountain of bubbles overflowing from the sink in the powder room.

Piles of coffee grinds and coffee beans all over the sink, floor and counter top. It was like Guatemala exploded in my kitchen. When I walked in on this scene, one one of my sister-in-laws had my grinder in pieces all over the counter in an attempt to remedy the problem. It was not fixable and the grinder went in the garbage.

Note to self: Don't ever ask your mother to make coffee again.

And I found these things after the party:

Cake and assorted food chunks squished on the floor.

A puddle of liquid hand soap in the jar candle on the sink in the powder room.

The vanity top on the kid's bathroom sink cracked down the middle.

It's not about the losses or the mess though. As any host who opens their home to such a large group of people, of such varying ages (2-89) knows - shit is gonna get broken. That's just the way it is. Our house is not a showplace, it's lived in and it bears the scars of that living. I could choose to do what my friend Sherry Leiberman's mother did and velvet rope off the living room and cover the french provincial furniture in plastic. But as I consider all of those things tacky (ropes, plastic and French Provincial) I make the conscious choice to take the hit.

Next weekend I will play hostess to fifteen 13 year olds. By comparison to what happened when the 89 year old was here, how bad could it be?

P.S. Joey went to the Dr. and he did not have Swine Flu. Happy Birthday Bubble Boy!

Forty Days and Forty Nights, Did it Rain Children

This June in the NY metro area has been one of the rainiest in my memory, just hovering near the historical high. This is delightful for the flowers and shrubs and grass seed that we have been growing, but it sucks for everything else.

I'm getting tired of sending my daughter out to the bus stop in a rain slicker. Every morning she looks like she's about to board the Cornelia Marie. Not to mention that we have a BBQ coming up this weekend with 40 (yes 40) guests. Fifteen of whom are 13 year old boys. What the hell am I going to with such a large collective of ADHD if it rains? Crap!

So, being that the rain has been so biblical of late, I decided to look for an old cartoon that they used to play when I was a kid. It was like those schoolhouse rock videos, but it was about Noah's Ark. Needless to say, I could not find it. But I did find this. Check out a pre-Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe on QVC. He's sporting a Conan-like tuft of hair and a slight frame that looks like it belongs to one of the cast of Trainspotting, as he makes an earnest attempt to push a ridiculous Noah's Ark purse/toy/thing.

FYI - two male lions are not going to repopulate the species. Who says religion is anti-gay? This is practically a domestic partnership endorsement. One thing is for sure, Dirty Jobs Mike Rowe can kick QVC Mike Rowe's ass!

Taking a Walk is Not Equal to Streetwalking

I don't know how to say this gently. so I'll just blurt it out - my sister in law thinks I'm a hooker. There, I said it and I feel better about it. It's all just a misunderstanding, but one that kinda has me has me reeling. I will try to explain . . .

It all goes back to the first week of June when we decided to have a big BBQ for my son's 13th birthday. It is customary in our house for me to handle ALL the arrangements, but for some strange reason, hubby decided to create the Evite. Evites are online invitations that you send out by e-mail. Anyway, he sends out the invite and adds my e-mail to the list separately, just so that I could view the invitation. But since I am already part of his head count, I declined. Being that I had just written this post about spending Memorial Day in the city watching hookers and sailors during fleet week, I made the following (tongue in cheek) reply: "Diaryofamadbathroom cannot attend as she will be returning to NYC to find straggler sailors left over from Fleet Week". You get it, right? A joke to be sure. Not to my sister in law.

This past weekend my husband gets an e-mail from his sister asking the following - "Was that a joke or is DG really not going to be home this weekend for the party?". When he read the e-mail to me, we shared an uncomfortable giggle about it. On the one hand, it was hysterically funny, but on the other hand, WTF?

I have never felt like my husband' s family get my sense of humor. When I sit around a table with my family, we laugh like idiots, but I don't think I have ever so much as gotten a giggle out of them. It's like their sarcasm receptors are broken. And let's face it, if the audience doesn't get sarcasm, then my material goes over like a lead balloon. So now I have to flop sweat through this one and explain the joke. You know that once you have to explain the joke, it's no longer funny.

The party is this weekend and I am torn about how to handle it. I can either put on some spandex and clear heels, park a couple of big rigs in the driveway and disappear from the grill every 20 minutes or so -OR- I can take the high road. Hmmmm. It's a tough decision. I could really use the money.

Perhaps You Were Raised in a Barn

Rude and RUDE!

This is what I think of the majority of the strangers that I have encountered over the past few weeks. It seems like every trip to the 7-11, grocery store or mall results in a dis by some barn raised skank biscuit.

Just yesterday morning I walked into the 7-11 to get me a jumbo bottled water (hydration, y'all!) and I held the door for some barnyard stompin heifer who stormed right by me leaving a trail of hay in her wake. Not only did she not look me in the eye, nod in appreciation or moo a word of thanks, Bessie just plowed past with her snout in the air and did not touch the door to hold it for the person behind her. She left me holding said portal de la junk food. Who the ef am I? Jeeves? Alfred the butler?

I stood in stunned silence for a second then called out after her "Milk much? Yeah, I thought so Elsie. See you next Tuesday!" She never looked back, she just kept clip-clopping toward the barnyard.

Clearly this heinous bitch spends most of her free time picking cow pie residue out of her cloven hooves. I can imagine the squealing horde of ingrate veal that she is raising back at the barn. Surely it must be a bastion of classlessness. All hooves on the table and whatnot.

So, where in the world did peoples basic manners go? Apparently they got washed down the drain when Farmer Brown hosed out the barn. Well here's a warning to all uncouth hogs and heifers out there - Should you venture outside of the barnyard today, be on your best behavior because I am mounting a cowcatcher on the front of my minivan and if I have to, I'll get all "BEEF! It's what's for dinner" on your ass. Bring on the sirloin!

Takin on the Big O

The Cult of Oprah. Are you a member? I can happily say that I am not and while I don’t have anything against Oprah, per se, I also don’t understand the Mesmer-like effect that she has on the daytime TV audience. What is it about this woman that so strongly compels people to follow “The Secret” or to read “The Secret Life of Bees”?

In a recent issue of Newsweek, Oprah was called out for pushing unproven and unsound medical advice to her viewers. Whether these things are proven or not does not matter to me, she totally has a right to present the things that she likes to her audience. I am far more interested in the public exercising a healthy skepticism before plunging over the cliff of one of her recommendations.

For a serious look at what Oprah is being questioned on, go here:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/200025

For a peek into Oprah’s Va Jay Jay (you know you wanna look), go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX2m0oZv1rc

PS. I HEART the Soup. I HEART Joel McHale. I HEART Mallomars.

Spike is a Hotness Monster

My cat Spike is a hotness monster. I swear that he is the Johnny Depp of the cat world (that's Robert Pattinson for you kids under 30).

Just the other day I walked outside with my camera and I was all "Spike, wanna do a photospread for Catsompolitain?" And he was all "Whatevs." As soon as I started to click, he fired off a bunch of provacative poses on the front lawn. I swear his hotness left a brown patch on the grass. Of course Brownie looked on and wimpered from the front door in a total state of jealousy. I'd take sexy photos of her if she'd let me, but she's usually too busy sniffing the camera lens to see if it is made of liverwurst.

Before you look, I must warn you , these are somewhat risque and may cause your eyelashes to burst into flames.

Spike was kind enough to narrate what was going through his head as he posed. He's so method. I swear he's gonna be a star.


"Hey baby, thanks for stoppin by. You look very sexy. Can I get you a drink? Saucer of milk, perhaps?"

"No? Not into drinking? Then how about I just show you some of my feline pultritude?"

"Check this out. I pulled this move on *Krazy Kat, just before I stole her heart from Ignats the mouse."

"Look into my eyes. It would be a CATastrophe to avoid my gaze."

"I like playing shy for you. Peek a boo baby!"

"MMMM. Yeah. Scratch behind my ears. You know how I like it baby."

"Was it as good for you as it was for me? Who are we kidding? It was GREAT for YOU."

OK, take a second to collect yourself. I know how overwhelming that must have been for you. And listen, your secret is safe with me. I'm not gonna tell your husband, wife or pets what you've been doing on the internet. Just make sure to brush that kitty litter off your clothes before you go back into the kitchen.

P.S.
* I put this reference to Krazy Kat just to see how old you all are. Obvi, I remember her. Do you?

Too Many Cooks is Really Just Me

When I cook, I don't write anything down. I am a cook by taste, smell and appearance kinda gal. When people ask me for recipes of things that I have cooked (without a recipe) I am terribly challenged to give it to them because it means that I have to retrace the winding road of pinches and dashes that I have added along the way.

So today, I was making barbecue sauce and before I started, I said to myself, let me write down what I am doing so that I can share it (should anyone ask for it) . What I came up with was a ridiculously long list of ingredients. I didn't even bother to write down the instructions after I had recorded the ingredients because I figured that I would lose most people at around the midpoint of the ingredient list.

Here it is in all its absurdity.

2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Medium Onion chopped fine
1 Small Jalapeno chopped fine
3 Cloves Garlic chopped fine
1 small (6 oz) can Tomato Paste
1/4 Cup prepared Ketchup
1/4 Cup Absolute Peppar Vodka
1/2 Cup Water
28 Oz Tomato Puree
2 Tbs Honey
2 Tbs Golden Syrup
Juice of 1 Lemon
1/4 Cup Balsamic Vinegar
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Teaspoon Cajun Seasoning
1/4 Teaspoon White Pepper
1/4 Teaspoon Black pepper
1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 Teaspoon Salt


20 effing ingredients! It seemed so much simpler when I didn't write it down. This recipe is emblematic of my personality's overall lack of economy. I break every rule in the book. I'm all - Why say it in five words when a novel will do? Why have a simple five ingredient BBQ sauce when you can use 20? Why have 1 Mallomar when there is an entire box in front of you?

You're never going to ask me for a recipe, are you? I didn't think so. It's OK. I'm not bitter. After this exercise, I wouldn't either.

Go Ahead, Golf if You Dare!

Tomorrow is the annual Golf Outing at my office. This is a good thing because it means that most of the Senior Managers will be out of the office for most if not all of the day. And if any of them do come back, they will be so slushy that they will be barely functional. So what does that mean for the rest of us? It's office prank day! Here is a small sample of what I have planned:

1) Turn everything in my bosses office upside down or backwards.

2) Order a huge pizza lunch delivered on the corporate account.

3) Place a piece of masking tape over the light on my bosses optical mouse.

4) Call the receptionist and have Dick Hertz paged, over and over and over.

5) Leave prank messages on my bosses voice mail asking him to call back Mr. Baldee at Hair Club for Men.

6) Encase my bosses stapler in jello

7) Cover the Department Head's Mahogany office furniture in tin foil.

8) Empty the contents of several hole punchers into my bosses umbrella, then close it up tight and wait for the next rainy day.

9) Fill the Vice President's office with balloons.

10) Cover my bosses whiteboard with a collage of Jonas Brother's pictures from Tiger Beat. Leave enough white space in the middle to write I (Heart) the Jonas Brothers.

11) Photoshop my bosses face on the Mona Lisa, Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, etc and wallpaper his office with the copies.

Ok, the truth is that I will not do ANY of these things tomorrow as I am working remotely AND my boss is really cool, so I leave him alone. However, I can tell you that in my long and illustrious (not really) career, either me or one of my friends have done 8 out of 11 of those pranks. And I won't say which ones as I am still wanted in at least three companies for felony pranking. Remember, you know nothing. You never saw me . . . . . .

Teens filled with angsty goodness. . .

This post has been removed by management for being too self indulgent. Yes, the author has teens and yes, they can be quite a handful, even downright nasty. However, this blog is supposed to be humorous and the author clearly forgot the humorous part on her most recent entry. My guess is that she is was so buried in laundry, cleaning and food shopping, that she forgot her fundamentals. I have given her the rest of the day off to regroup and she will be back tomorrow. Hopefully she will have something witty and charming to say. She'd better or her ass is fired. I'll be watching. I'm always watching.

- Management