Tall Curly Biscuit

I have a few friends and acquaintances who are doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists.  They swear that a full moon brings out the weirdest cases.  When the moon is beaming in all its glory, more babies are born, patients come in with strange and exciting injuries, and the mentally unstable become even more erratic.  I believe that it really does affect us, and last weekend there was a supermoon, which was even bigger and brighter than normal.  My mom posted something funny on Facebook: “If the moon is 14% bigger and 30% brighter, does that mean that people will act 14-30% crazier?”

Yes.  The answer is yes.  I, for one, cried off and on for no reason during the entire sewing and construction of a new curtain for my laundry room (4 hours?) and ate a pound of Havarti cheese in one night, which I definitely wouldn’t have done during a waning gibbous or a waxing crescent.

I like to blame my actions on the moon.

Thank goodness the supermoon is gone, and I’m back to eating smaller amounts of string cheese and crying only during bowel movements.

After the moon weirdness, I had just what I needed today— a fantastic lunch with dear friends.  It cheered me right up.  We got so loud that the restaurant pulled a partition around us.  We might have laughed a little too heartily at anything, but we had especially good fodder today: a couple of ladies in our party had recently finished the book trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey.

If you are alive right now, you’ve probably heard about the books since they currently hold the top three spots on the New York Times Bestseller list, but you may not know what they’re about.  I need to inform you immediately: it’s racy mommy porn to the extreme.  I haven’t read the books, but I hear the series is quite, umm, hard-core and contains lots of bondage action.  Some women have described it as Twilight for grownups — grownups who like s&m.  If you don’t know about this series, you might be living in a cocoon.  It’s so popular that when a friend walked into Target and said, “I’m looking for this book,…” the sassy cashier cut her off by putting his hand up like, stop right there, girl, and led her directly to the Fifty Shades of Grey section.

It’s important to be aware of the content of these books so you don’t do something like my other friend did.  She thought the books were just your regular ol’ candy-for-your-brain bestsellers with tame romance and mild longing between a girl and a vampire/werewolf/hunter.  She told her family that she’d like the books for her birthday, so her husband took their five kids WITH PIGGY BANKS IN HAND to buy the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.  I can only imagine the cashier’s horror when the bright-eyed little family Von Trapp (‘cause they look straight out of The Sound of Music) plopped these hard-core sex books onto the counter.  My friend is appropriately horrified and just hopes that the older kids didn’t read the book jacket.

It was the mental image of an uncomfortable cashier that prompted me and said friends to go to Target today and gather a Fifty Shades basket full of goodies and dare each other to walk through the check-out with all of it.  Lingerie, the three books, lube, a tie, condoms…we even looked for toy handcuffs, but Target has replaced their violent dramatic play aisle with learning toys.  America’s gone soft, y’all.

Every basket tells a story.

We wondered if Target managers would kick out four suburban women, even though two of us were wearing ladies-who-lunch dresses.  Anyway, after much debate, we decided that instead of checking out we would leave the basket in a fortuitous aisle for someone to stumble upon.  We chose the red wine section, of course.

We felt this was a good deed because we either made someone laugh or saved them time when planning the next Date Night.

We had a fabulous time with this new hobby we call cart staging.  I was just saying on my Facebook page that I need a new hobby, so this is perfect.  We plan to create dramatic scenes that will make imaginations run wild, all within the confines of a shopping basket.  Hey, this is beginning to sound like high-falutin’ performance art, people.  Can I get a grant, please?  I can’t promise any regularly scheduled cart staging stories, but maybe we can aim for one every other waxing gibbous moon or something.

So my Kindle is charging, and I have a question: How much chain-whipping does it take to burn off a pound of Havarti?

***Also, some details of this story have been changed to protect the innocent.  In fact, I don’t actually have friends, probably because I cry and sew simultaneously.  I didn’t even know these people prior to lunch, but when I approached a random grouping of suburban lunching ladies about s&m books and a Target trip, they totally went for it.

Have you ever had a bear experience?  Like with a real, live animal?  To me, bears are funny circus performers, snuggly teddys, and, at their most ferocious, school mascots.  Don’t challenge them at basketball, but otherwise, you can walk right up and banter knock-knock jokes back and forth.

Two bear stories were published in my local paper in the past couple of weeks, and both affirmed the adorableness of bears and people from Vermont.  (Vermonters have maple syrup wafting from their pores.  It’s so sweet!)

The first story was about the governor of Vermont – the Head Honcho as we say in Texas – but I believe Vermonters call him Syrupy Statesman.  His name is Pete Shumlin, and his official website says this: “He…can sometimes be found spreading manure and cutting hay at his farm.”  You gotta love a guy who spreads manure when he’s not pulling maple taffy.

Anyway, according to the Associated Press, Pete had a “late-night encounter with four bears trying to snack from backyard birdfeeders.”  It was just a little snack, but Pete did what any top dog would do in a movie: he ran outside half-naked and chased the bears away.  Of course, the biggest bear decided to chase him back, and the governor barely “escaped.”  This is a joke, right?  ‘Cause it sounds like he wanted to wrastle with a cuddly black bear.  The governor ran into his house and slammed the back door on the bear, effectively ending the playdate.  The big bear was only six feet away from frolicking with the almost-naked governor.  How cute is that???  A scantily-clad Vermonter roughhousing with a furry black bear?  Those two cuddlebugs!   Syrupy Statesman has part of it on tape, but he’s refused to release it.  Too bad, ‘cause I’d pay to see that, just like a Will Ferrell movie.

Imagine him in his undies playing with a chubby bear! That sounds way weirder than I intended.

The other story was from the University of Colorado, Boulder.  A bear was roaming the campus for over a week, probably just looking for a circus trainer to work with.  Administrators got concerned because that’s what they do – suck the fun right out of everything.  They had the bear tranquilized and removed from the campus.  Once the drugs hit the bear’s bloodstream (so peaceful), he let go of the tree he was resting in and fell onto a trampoline.  Just like the circus!  Anyway, here’s a picture that will make your day:

This is a real, unedited photo! Credit: AP Photo/CU Independent, Andy Duann

Have y’all heard the news this week about how teenagers are distilling gel-based hand sanitizer to get drunk?  We may be behind other countries in science scores, but our American ingenuity will keep us afloat!  No need to worry about today’s youth!  Resourceful, that group!

I just ran out of peach blossom scented hand sanitizer, rubber cement, AND tequila, so I’m painting the laundry room countertops for my daily fix.  That’s right — Formica countertops.  They make paint for that!  One hour ago they were mauve, and now they’re black.  Woohoo!  I might be high, but how can anyone really tell?

I don’t think I ordered this magazine, but I keep getting Southern Living in the mail even though I DO NOT CARE ABOUT PLACES TO EAT IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.  I swear they run that story every month.  No offense to Charleston — I’m sure it’s lovely.  But I might as well be a million miles from there with no plans to go.  Plus, if I do decide to vacation in Charleston, I’m not going to reference Southern Living because by now they’ve recommended every restaurant in the whole dang town.

Anyway, I skimmed the magazine, which held a short interview with Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook.  I’ve never read any of his novels, but I saw the movie The Notebook.  I disliked the whole film up until the end, at which point I cried so hard that I really HATED the movie.  Another one of his novels, The Lucky One, is about to be released as a movie.  The plot of The Lucky One came about like this: “I (Sparks) was struck with the idea of a soldier finding a woman’s photograph in the desert sand, regarding it as his lucky charm, and ultimately deciding to find that woman.”

The couple from The Notebook are in madly in love, despite his over abundance of facial hair. I couldn't make fun of The Lucky One because Zac Efron is too hot.

Sparks’ stories are about unlikely love, romance against all odds, and other nonsense.  He likes to create Southern male characters “who, when they fall in love, feel it as deeply as the women.”  Gag.  He keeps it real by having main characters die all the time.  It’s true that I haven’t read the books, but I’ve seen every sappy movie preview, and they all hint at impending doom.  I just Wikipedia’d Sparks, and it says this: “He has 16 published novels, with elements including cancer, death, pirates, and love.  Seven have been adapted to film, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, and most recently The Lucky One.”

Wait, wait, wait….pirates?

Anyway, in today’s newspaper, I found the perfect idea for an even more realistic, fresh romance between two struggling, Southern youngsters trying to find their way in the world.

From the first sentence in the article “Robber took more than a purse” comes my throw-down challenge to Nicholas Sparks.  Here is his new prompt: “Rogelio Belmonte and Kaitlin Edmonson were young and in love as they plotted break-ins and thefts to feed their crack cocaine and methamphetamine habits.” Seriously, that’s the opening sentence of the news article.  I can already feel the romance, and I can only imagine the depth of their love.

Write, Nicholas, write like the wind.  Make us feel their struggles, and help us understand their hopes and dreams.  But you can leave out the part where Rogelio murdered that elderly woman.  Blame that on pirates.

Back to painting, my friends.  These toxic chemicals aren’t going to spread themselves.

Hello Dear Readers,

As we bask in the sweet smell of spring — full of new life, fresh rain, flowers, and the occasional burst of barely-composted manure from the hardcore organic gardener next door — let’s take a moment to appreciate our good fortune.  This is the kind of weather that makes everything and everyone on Earth seem fresh and lovely.  Yesterday, with the windows open to the fresh breeze and singing birds, I browsed the May issue of Lucky.  It’s a fashion magazine for women about 10 years younger than me, but whatever.  What I wore: vintage (2008) black Pro Spirit athletic shorts from Target, the latest gray Nikes available for under $39, and a pink Under Armour shirt that was expertly washed and faded (over 100 washes!)  Just thought you’d want to know.  Somebody make a Pinterest board for me.

As I was stylishly flipping pages that lovely spring day, I saw an ad for a perfume called Alien.  Yes, that’s right.  Alien.  This may be old news to those of you who pay more attention to fashion, and if so, WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN US???  I subscribe to a couple of fashion magazines, but I usually scan for articles to make me feel redeemed, such as “Weak ankles rule! 4 inch heels are for losers.”  I have yet to find that article. But I’ve never noticed this Alien ad before so it’s news to me.

Anyway, let’s get back to the warning at hand: Someone wants us to stop smelling like Earth.  Sweet, springtime, life-giving Earth.  That someone is French designer Thierry Mugler, and he’d prefer us to smell otherworldly.  He’s trying to convince human women that our pheromones and natural body odor, even after a coconut & sugarcane bubble bath, are not enough.  Neither is jasmine, gardenia, citrus, sandalwood, or any other conventional fragrance.  Not even ylang-ylang or tonka bean.  Perfumers even have milked juices from beaver anal glands to make us smell sweetly musky and bizarrely desirable, but that’s not enough either.  We should smell like seductive, golden beings from another universe, says the Alien brand.

Human is not good enough 'cause aliens are hotter.

I’m all for seductive and golden, but how are aliens more attractive than humans?  Is this the guy-fantasy version of Twilight?  Chicks like vampires, dudes like aliens?  Captain Kirk and the guy in Avatar were seduced by feminine extraterrestrial creatures, but other explorers have tried to destroy alien ladies, like in V (the awesome tv show that got cancelled).  That chick was an evil lizard underneath her fake skin, and she laid creepy eggs and wanted to enslave humans.  The people in the show didn’t really have any choice but to fight her, but maybe during the whole battle they imagined how she would kiss if she didn’t have all those rows of teeth.  Tell me: Do you, too, find aliens attractive?

Guys like alien chicks, even those who didn't get dental work.

And what do aliens smell like?  Nobody even knows what odors space holds because we can’t breathe up there and all the moon rocks are locked up.  I called my friend V, not to be confused with the tv show, to see if she knew about this perfume.  She said that the thought of Alien the fragrance brought to mind green slime and anal probes.  Trust me, she doesn’t usually think about green slime and anal probes, that I know about, anyway.  Research on the smell of Alien the perfume turned up a YouTube video from username lotsofcurls.  Lotsofcurls reveals that “the box is nothing special, but what’s inside is,” and “the bottle has a nice grip.”  She mentions suspiciously little about the actual chemical warfare components fragrance.  Aha, but the Sephora website describes Alien as “radiant and mysterious….Be seduced by the soothing solar energy of this extraordinary fragrance from elsewhere.”

Upon searching Thierry Mugler, I found lots of references to his “passion” and some information that leads me to believe he might be jaded.  One site says this: “He took courses at the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg ……(people) stopped him on the street to ask where his clothes came from, or to insult him!”  I think he hates humans.

Lo and behold, my daughter happened to have a tiny bottle of Alien the perfume.  Alien is sold at Nordstrom, and a nice lady who works there gave my daughter some samples.  The Nordstrom employee was even an alien herself, but the kind from Croatia, not S-XBAX Planet 99.  To quell our curiosity, I’ll sacrifice my wrist by applying a sample.  Please call 911, Bruce Willis and Will Smith if I don’t respond after this.

I'm spraying strange chemicals, I mean Alien, on my wrist.

Overwhelming scent of molted lizard skin, a mild bouquet of oxidized metal, with underlying notes of putrid slime.  That’s what aliens smell like.  Go fantasize about that, male humans.  Oh, and beware because Mugler wants to turn you into a zombie.

This guy reeks of art and digested brains.

I guess now would be a good time to wish you an early happy Earth Day.  It may be the last chance we get to celebrate our home planet.

Last week I read a couple of really good posts about parenting.  For real.  You may have seen them too because they went viral.  The first is “Your Children Want You.”  It made me cry because it’s so sweet.  The other two aren’t as weepy, but they’re insightful.  Read “Ten Things I Want to Tell Teenage Girls” and “Motherhood 101.”  I’m going to save the Teenage Girl guide for my daughter to read in a few years, and it’s too bad the new mom post didn’t exist back when I needed it.

I wish I could write something inspirational and tender, but that’s just not my style.  Occasionally I have mushy thoughts inside my head, but they come out all wonky, kind of like my dancing.  All my moves seem awesome when they start in my brain, but the execution is poor and the whole scene becomes downright humiliating for both me and innocent onlookers.

Also, I have no special qualifications to write parenting advice — I’m not a teacher, psychologist, or a mother of five.  My kids are happy, healthy, and well-adjusted, but they are easy children.  I’m not saying a monkey could do it — I’m proud of my mothering — but we haven’t faced the challenges that many families deal with, unless you count the several instances of Legos stuck in various orifices.

As a result of my inability to be serious and my lack of qualifications, you won’t hear much realistic life advice from me.  However, this is kinda real: Tell your kids exactly what bad words mean ‘cause they’ll be shamed out of ever cursing again.

Yesterday my daughter and I were out in the yard smelling roses, and one bush had been stripped of half of its flower petals.  My daughter asked why, and I explained that the sprinkler system had hit the plant with a powerful stream and knocked the petals off.  My sweet, thoughtful, somewhat sheltered 10-year-old daughter replied loudly and with conviction, “Sprinkler systems are dou***bags!”

It rhymes with smooshbags.

I was half-horrified and half about to laugh.  I gasped and gently replied that we cannot say that word.  It’s impolite.  It’s gross.  Oh. My. Gosh.

She had no idea that it was so inapropro.  (I use inappropriate so much that I gave it a nickname.)  I was immediately suspicious of a certain television show, but she said she read the word in a book she got from school.  Authors.  Pshaw.

I was afraid that she might say it again sometime if I simply told her it was a bad word.  She might still think it sounded cool.  So I took all the coolness out of it:  I gave her the real, graphic definition.  She was immediately blushing, mortified and grossed out.  And very apologetic.  Score!  And then we had a good laugh.

We agreed that bad words, especially that one, are not ladylike.  My daughter felt a little flattered that I gave her an accurate explanation and trusted her to keep it to herself.  With great power comes great responsibility.  Now that she knows the meaning of the word, I’m 99.9% positive she will avoid saying it out of pure embarrassment.  I admit that I’m not always proper — my last post was about fruit flies doing the deed — but I’m not ten-years-old, either.  And I’m making a conscious decision to write such things, so I won’t be surprised when nobody wants me to be President of the United States or the next Miss Manners.  (Though I might cry if I stop getting invited to parties, and that’ll teach me.)  My daughter should at least start out ladylike, and then she can go downhill from there if she so chooses.

Also, as a woman, I resent feminine hygiene products being used as an insult — I guess that’s why this word in particular offends me so much.  It seems degrading to women.  (I had more commentary about this but then decided that I would for sure lose party invitations.)  As an alternative, if you need to demean a sprinkler system, call it a tardy-gaited miscreant or another combination found on this Shakespearean list.

Anyway, I think bad words are much less appealing to kids when shock factor is replaced with embarrassment and disgust at the real meaning.  So here’s my parenting advice in a nutshell:  Tell your kids what smooshbag means if it ever comes up.

***Disclaimer: This strategy should not be used with kids who have poor impulse control, those of a rebellious nature, or on children who are too young to know about puberty.  Also, I didn’t look up the definition of tardy-gaited miscreant, so I apologize if I offended those of you who are, in fact, tardy-gaited or miscreants.***

This touched your heart and made you cry, didn’t it?