Regular readers of this column know several things about me. 1) I love fashion, and blame it on a genetic predisposition due to my descent from tailors, dress makers and owners of clothing stores. 2) I read the style page in the Miami Herald despite the fact that style is so loosely defined by their editors as being any old rag on any old hag. 3) I am not shy about sharing my (superior) taste and opinions with you, my readers, or the editors of the aforementioned Herald style page.

Yesterday’s featured… featured what? I am at a loss for words beyond skank-ho, appalling, mutton-dressed-as-lamb and a few others that even I won’t use here. Be warned, the photo is not work or retina safe.

Yeah. Where do I begin? At the top, with the obvious and ratty weave? With her age (43) which means she’s old enough to know better (something both RJ and a few others mentioned to me)? With the fact that she’s wearing and admitting to wearing (which may even be worse) a perfume that smells like cotton candy?

How about at the bottom, with her boots, which look, even allowing for bad newsprint, filthy and in need of a good cleaning/polishing?

In fact, I would go so far as to say that Ms. Auerbach herself looks in need of a good scrubbing. The RLA, upon seeing this on the dining room table and watching me spew coffee, said merely: Hmm, plastic surgery is THAT girl’s friend.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that Auerbach was my maiden name, and I was ready to put my head in the oven in shame over her. But this morning I did my Google homework and found that she married into the name, and so is of no concern to the integrity of my family line. I also found out that she claims not to drink, that she’s a body builder, and the divorced mother of two teenagers. They must be very proud of her today.

But wait, there is more to this than meets the scarred retina. I actually read her “hot Valentine’s Day tips.” I quote, and then I opine:

“Wear sexy red lingerie under your outfit just in case someone special wins your heart; put on a pair of sizzling red stilettos with pencil-leg jeans; carry a designer red tote bag big enough to fill with devilishly delicious chocolate truffles, scented candles and massage oil.”

Another thing that readers of this blog know about me is that I am passionate about AIDS education, research and social assistance, and that I served for almost ten years on the board of directors of a local AIDS service organization. So when I say that I almost popped a vein after reading her tips, you know where I’m going next.

Who, in 2007—twenty-odd years after the start of the AIDS crisis, can offer the suggestion of being ready for spontaneous sex with some random person who floats your boat on Valentine’s day without loading that designer red whore’s bag of tricks with condoms? Who would even think of preparing in the morning for a chance encounter that night? And this woman has two teenagers. What is she teaching them?

And where is the journalistic responsibility of the Miami Herald? Oh, yeah. Oxymoron. Herald and journalism or Herald and integrity… The whole enterprise appalled me, and I fired off one of my more scathing letters to the editor. I’m certain it went straight to the digital circular file. Still, would it have killed an editor to rewrite her tip so that it at least pretended to be suggesting you do all this for someone you are already in a relationship with? Or to include condoms in the “be prepared” list? Or even to have chosen someone who looked a little less likely to be found on the side of the road up around 79th Street?

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I also found that Ms. Auerbach claims to be a writer, one who specializes in writing for the Neighbors section of… The Miami Herald. Can you say circle jerk?

Once again, I find myself shaking my head and asking why I even bother.

Well, the Westminster show turned out better than I expected after the first night. I always feel somehow cheated out of a dog or two when the poodles win in multiple groups, and Monday night the miniature won in the toy group and the standard in the non-sporting group. And they were both white, so it was like, a double denial.

But then last night the surprises! The upsets! The drama!

It was great.

The RLA, the doggies and I were settled in for the viewing, but The Noble Dog Nails wasn’t too keen, because the Jack Russell hadn’t even placed in the terrier group. And besides, we’re JRT purists around these parts, and voted against joining the AKC. In fact, the JRT Club of America voted as a group against standardizing the breed and registering with the AKC, which is why the AKC has Parson Russell Terriers and there is still the separate breed of the Jack Russell Terrier.*

But first the sporting group delivered up their top dog, the English Springer Spaniel. That was followed by the upset in the Hound Group, as a little PBGV girl took top honors, beating out the favorites (and surprising me, because I was sure the judge was in love with the Viszla, and rightly so, because that was a magnificent pup). JoJo and I danced around the living room, and gave each other high-fives.**

Finally, the working dogs took center ring. There was a wonderful pair of Corgis, and a handsome German Shepherd, and the big, bouncy, goofy Bouvier des Flandres, another (ahem) underdog who ended up with the ribbon and the chance at Best in Show. This caused almost as much excitement here in the Casa Des Zapatas, because JoJo’s bestest doggie friend is (or was, until they moved to Texas) P-Roo’s goofy, bouncy, big ole Bouv, the lovely Myka.***

All in all, a terrific show for the home breeds.****

The tension in the Garden was palpable as the seven doggies took turns in the spotlight, each taking once-around on the green carpet. Then, even though the Dandy Dinmont was favored to win, and the Akita was truly magnificent, and the crowd favorite was my beloved PBGV, the surprise winner of the purple and gold was the English Springer. Which is fine, I suppose, because he is a handsome fellow, and selfishly for me*****, a therapy dog. But still, a Springer. Ho-hum. Could it have been more cliche than that? I suppose a pointer could have won. Or one of those stupid poodles.

*Splitters!

** Or high fours, since she only has four toes. In any event, except for shedding, eating and pooping, high fives are JoJo’s only trick. And stealing TND Nails’ food.

***Myka is a licensed assistance dog, and can go anywhere.

**** I used to have a Viszla. And we have a doggie friend who is a Corgi. Barks to Oliver!!!!

***** I convinced my boss to buy advertising on the Animal Planet reruns of the Westminster Show. We’ll be running our Pet Therapy ad exclusively in our Florida markets. Serendipity is good.

Are you ready to rumble? I am. Tonight is the big opening night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Extravaganza in Madison Square Garden. I may have mentioned a time or two that I love the doggies. And the show. And the dead seriousness of the whole show.

But wait, there’s more. Later this month (on the 23st) RJ and I (and our husbands) trot over to SoBe for the Great South Beach Wine & Food Festival.* The weekend ends with us returning home, hung over, exhausted and sated to ensconce ourselves our couches for the best of all possible awards shows, the Oscars. Then, on the 28th, we have the return (season 8) of America’s Next Top Skank-Ho Model . I’m tired just dreaming about it.

* Yes, I have the pickled green tomatoes all ready to present to the great and wonderful Tony Bourdain. Sigh. I’m so not worthy.

But the pickles? They are. Totally. He’ll be my foodie slave forever, IF I can get him to actually eat one. I don’t, you know. But for people who like this sort of thing? They love love love my green tomato pickles.

It is a fact that loonies are drawn to me like moths to a flame, and like a flame, I can burn them to a crisp. I usually don’t because even loonies deserve, uh… ok, I usually do flame them, but not always. Yesterday, in fact…

I was sitting on the bench at the MetroRail station, twiddling with my earphones and minding my own business as I waited for the south-bound to take me home. There were women on either side of me. I was wearing a very conservative denim dress, almost ankle-length, long-sleeved and with a deep, but modest v-neck. And a pair of killer, spike-heeled, pointy-toed mules.

Along came a spider loonie, dressed in camo and a tee, with spiked hair with bleached tips. He could have been anywhere from 18 to 25, a little hard-ridden, possibly homeless. He had that look in his eyes, of not being quite all together (but then, who among us is?) I kept my head down and twiddled with my earphones.

He came right up in front of me, dropped into a squat, and very, very gently, like the merest hint of a thought of a touch, caressed my instep. To get my attention or because he’s got some weird foot thing, who knows. I looked up and he very clearly said “You are so beautiful.” Uh-huh, right and old enough to be your mother, I think, and no, I’m not giving you money. I just look at him and pretend I can’t understand or hear. He repeats it and then asked me if I was married. “Yes, very” I replied, and looked back at my lap. Then he got up, looked back at me, told me one more time that he thought I was so beautiful. I touched my fingertips to my heart and said thanks, and then disappeared back into myself and he wandered off into the crowd.

The women on my left just stared at me with saucer-like eyes, and tried to engage me in conversation about what had happened, but by then, I had cranked up the i-pod as loud as I could handle it, and the train was coming and I escaped another conversation.

Once on the train, I spotted RJ in the same car, so I went up to tell her the story, but she was embedded in her own version of the loonie conversation. The woman with her was a Seinfeld-worthy low talker, and carried on a monologue at us for the entire trip, allowing nothing more than an uh-huh or a nod from us. I have no idea what she was on about, because I couldn’t hear a word. RJ kept rolling her eyes at me and wagging her eyebrows, so it must have been deadly.

...

Monday, as I mentioned, I went to hear Christopher Moore. The audience was slow to warm to him, and then a cell phone rang, and he made a joke about the only thing cell phones are useful for is to train dogs to salivate. The only people in the crowd to laugh were me, the RLA, and the couple in front of us. The female (with a beautiful set of tattooed angel wings on her back—or at least the tops and tips that I could see were beautiful) joked that the only dog owners in the room were the four of us who laughed. Then Christopher said that, well, he was sorry and that he hadn’t meant to speak in a foreign language. To which I sang out, “Yeah. Well, you are speaking English.” and that broke up the entire room. Take me with you Chris, and I’ll do warm up.

...

Finally, will someone explain to me why a white trash, ex-Playboy skank deserves all this ink over the fold, and the report that the pre-war intelligence was cooked, immoral, but probably not illegal gets buried? I’m trying to figure out some way to blame her death (and the increasingly suspicious deaths of everyone connected to her) on the Bush family, a la Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys. Maybe it was Jeb, he’s not doing anything much these days, and she was in Florida.

Actually, they weren’t far away. They were in the seat across from me on the morning train. She was applying mascara. All the way from Dadeland North to Government Center, which is, help me out here RJ, what? thirty minutes?

That’s right. Thirty minutes of mascara application. I think that was about ten or twelve coats. Plus some khol around the inner rim. And while waiting for the mascara to dry, she passed her time plucking extraneous hair from her nose or lip. I couldn’t tell which, because the mirror was directly in front of both. But there were tweezers, and there was action in the upper lip/lower nostril area.

I would have gotten pictures but she kept giving me the stink eye for staring at her and she looked like the kind of bitch who would cut a girl.

Today we are getting a new well drilled. This isn’t such a big deal, really, since in Miami if you pull up a weed with really deep roots, you pretty much hit water. I think the original well was all of 18 feet deep.

Two days away from the office, however, has caused my work load and stress level to rise exponentially. Or is that geometrically? It’s a big work load and a ton of stress, OK? Whatevah.

And the spam comments are coming in about 50 a day again, offering discounted V-gra and H-dia and green tea extracts and who knows what else. I hate that shit with a passion, and until I can sit down with my laptop (still in Cupertino) and flip this site once and for all to Expression Engine, there is nothing I can do except turn off comments, and I won’t do that.

And just so you know? I am so depressed these days that it’s a good thing I don’t have a garage, if you get my meaning, if you catch my drift.

Day two. The pump guy finally showed up around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, took one look at the milky water in the koi pond and pronounced this conclusion: it ain’t the pump that’s your problem, it’s your well.” I called the well digger (again) and now, this morning, I’m waiting on that serviceman.

The RLA and I linked together four or five garden hoses and semi-flushed the pond with water from our neighbor’s well. And yes, they gave us permission. We weren’t sneaking around the neighborhood at dusk looking for unattended pumps.

The problem is finding well water. Even here on the wrong side of Dixie Highway, most folks have city water and a lot of people even use that for their sprinkler systems. City water is not usable for fish, since fish don’t like the flouride, the chlorine, the benzene and assorted other -ides and -ines that modern tap water provides.

Fortunately, my boss understands the demands placed on a two-career family when the children are sick, and so here I am, waiting for the man while the RLA goes off to mold young minds. Today, he says, he is going to teach them the difference between looking and seeing. I always say that that was the single most important lesson I learned in college. Well, that and how to roll a decent joint with only one paper, and not one of those sissy, double sized papers, either.

Last night, after we gave the fish some fresh well water, we trotted off to Books and Books (the finest independent book store in the south, as far as I’m concerned) to hear Christopher Moore speak. In a moment of lame-ass fandom, I gave him the scarf off my neck. I’d just knitted it, too, with some really yummy hand-spun from the Yarn Wench. It was a natural grey wool, with some odds and ends of color and sparkly stuff, but mostly manly. OK, maybe a leeetle metrosexual. But Moore had a runny nose, which he’d had since Denver, and was on the road for New York and Toronto and I felt bad for him. And I’m a total fan geek, all right?

I managed to take way more time than was polite, got my copy of A Dirty Job signed and made an impression by telling him that I think he’s the modern Thorne Smith. That got a huge smile from him and the book store owner, and Moore said that yes, he thinks that he’s channeling Thorne Smith.

For those readers who have no familiarity with either Christopher Moore or Thorne Smith, Smith wrote the original Topper books (among others) and Moore is the author of such great modern novels as The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, The Island of the Sequined Love Nun, and Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus’ Childhood Friend. Most of these (with the exception of Lamb) deal with regular folks, whose lives get turned inside out when the old gods, or minor gods, decide to take an active interest in them. Wonderful stuff.