YARRRRR!!!!

Not only is today Talk like a pirate day, it is the start of Season 9 of America’s Next Top

Model! I could not be happier. I am wearing a horizontally striped shirt, a denim skirt and boots. I have on a funky vest and a lovely rhinestone skull and crossbones pin. I have told my boss that in deference to the media crisis going on in the field, which will result in any number of calls coming in to this office today, I will NOT be answering the phones “YARRR!”

Aye, he has no idea how lucky he is. I, on the other hand, have a ‘ery clear idea o’ how lucky I am, because before I left for work, the RLA composed a two-hour Pyrates playlist and uploaded it ont’ the ole i-pod, ya savvy? Aye, me parrot concurs.

Tonight will be t’ traditional popcorn and cosmopolitans, fuzzy bathrobe and bunny slippers, run t’ husband out o’ t’ livin’ room and settle in t’ watch t’ best train wreck on television. I love, love, love Tyra Banks and her haphazard crew o’ wannabes who can’t walk in heels. Sigh.

While my passion for baseball has been well documented in this space, perhaps I have not been quite as forthcoming about my dalliances with football. (American football, for you readers from Down Under and abroad) It’s true that I went to games in high school and junior high, but only because in a tiny Southern town, that’s all there is to do on a Saturday night… except watch the sidewalks roll up. In college, I went to the first home game of my freshman semester, and no others. Now, again, there is this to factor in: the University of Miami Hurricanes lost almost every game during all four of my years there, and it wasn’t until Jim Kelly came along that UM became the quarterback and running back factory it is today. During the glory days of Bernie Kosar and Vinnie Testeverde, et.al. I went to every home game and some away games, most notably the Fiesta Bowl against Penn State in which Vinnie so spectacularly needed a Heimlich maneuver on the field.

But I haven’t been totally up front about the fact that I used to call my father to discuss the Dolphins, the Hurricanes and/or the (shudder) Florida Gators. Or that I found out John Lennon had been shot from Howard Cosell because I was in a hotel room 40 miles from home so that I could catch a Dolphin game that wasn’t broadcast in my area. Or that I bought a hi-def, giant screen tv so that I could watch the Superbowl commercials in HD and letterboxed.

All that being admitted, last night I was watching Sunday Night Football (San Diego going down in feeble sparks, not even flames, to the awesomeness of the New England Patriots—with their star, Randy Moss coming out of UM many years ago). There were the usual commercials for trucks, trucks and more trucks, and for various erectile dysfunction treatments (do not use if you have high blood pressure, low blood pressure, normal erectile functioning, liver disease, heart disease, stroke, vision problems, are breathing, are left handed but bat right, get erections lasting more than 4 hours!! etc…) and I was pretty much ignoring them all. But. Then a terrible thing happened. Viagra has co-opted my very favorite song not originally recorded by Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan. And when I say favorite, I mean it. I have an instrumental version featuring Johnny Ramone and Lemmy, a soulful rendition by Shawn Colvin, a couple of live takes by Bruce, the original by Elvis, the Tort Elvis/Dread Zeppelin reggae version, a punk version by the Dead Kennedys, and a few others. Have you guessed the song yet?

Viva Las Vegas has become Viva Viagra and I’ll be having nightmares about this for a month.

Well shut my mouf and stuff it with hush puppies. My purple boxes quilt has shown up today on the front page of Etsy as a hand-picked favorite.

And yesterday I went to temple and said kadish and heard the shofar and said my prayers and didn’t cry. In fact, it made me feel good to be back at services and I realized how much I miss the community of my temple. Next week is Kol Nidre, and I can’t wait.

I believe that this is going to be a good year.

Lord knows that I am the first to point fingers and laugh at the misfortunes of others, but not today. Today I am going to tell you something: I fear for Britney Spears. I have put her on my personal suicide/early death watch.

I saw her performance at the VMAs and it was so pitiful and sad that I could barely laugh at Sara Silverman’s routine. I did laugh, though. Inappropriate or not, cheap shots or not, the woman was funny. But Britney wasn’t funny. Nor was she there. She looked lost. She couldn’t walk in those heels, either because she was somehow impaired (drunk, high, downed out, a and b only, a and c only, all of the above) or because she somehow didn’t practice enough in them. Her movements weren’t the crisp dance movements of just a couple years ago, they were flacid and half-hearted. She didn’t seem to know the routine. Poor thing looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

And while personally, I could just kill for that body (not, you know, actually work out for it though), it wasn’t a body that should have been on display in that costume. Take a tip from her royal highness, Miss Cher, and if you want to expose yourself, do it through sheer mesh and under a shit load of sequins. Nobody will ever notice anything, and you will look Fabulous.

But poor Miss Spears. If, as the tabloids say, she is insecure about herself, this fire storm of “Fatty, Fat, Fat” and “She Can’t Dance” could put her over the edge. She has displayed enough self-destructive habits, displayed enough bad judgement, that one has to wonder (well, this one has to wonder) if she could totally self-destruct. Suicide? Overdose? A simple slip behind the wheel and over the high side of the PCH?

I hope someone gets her help. I doubt it will happen. But I think I’ve finally seen my fill of this particular train wreck. I’ll just turn the page.

It is no shock to constant readers of this blog that I am a gear head. A gear head from the first. And an aberration in my family, where nobody knows anything about cars. Well, there is a legendary uncle on my father’s side who used to come to Florida for the horses, arriving in some flash convertible with golf clubs in the back and leaving by hopping the train… but I digress.

Anyway. Cars. Love them. Love to drive them. Love to look at them. Loved this article about them.

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

I actually had some sewing room time this weekend, and some lolling about in the pool with the dogs. I started another tallis, and it should be ready for the holiday later this week. Tomorrow night I have to bake a honey cake. The RLA asked if I would be so kind as to make the traditional, dense, brick-like version this year, and I will happily oblige.

Later dollinks.

The first line of Girlyshoes t-shirts is now for sale at my Cafe Press shop. The earlier version of the “I’d Rather Be Widowed” shirt was recalled, and all my shirts are now 100% image-free. Slogan shirts with the best snark from yours truly. Do you wonder about people’s taste level? Let them know with the “Got Taste?” shirt. Tired of hearing those random cell phone conversations? We have the shirt for that, too.

The Girlyshoes T-shirt Shop

And by the way, The Insufferable Mr. Pimple took my e-mail to the Human Resources office to complain about me. They told him it wasn’t an HR issue, and if he had a problem to talk to me directly. That’s three for three: his boss, my boss and the employee rights person. Has he spoken to me? No.