There he is, the newly liberated dog BOB!, sweetly sleeping in his fuzzy blue blankie, on a couch. In a home. We did it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to his liberation fund. Jules and BOB! are very happy.

We’re in day two of a soaking, steady rain here in South Florida. This is rain of biblical proportions. This is rain measured in inches to feet. This is rain that isn’t going away. This is monsoon season rain. It’s beautiful, actually.

The problem with it, though, is that it makes South Florida drivers forget what precious little they know about driving. This means that you find folks driving with their flashers on, driving in the middle of two lanes to take advantage of the dry spot, speeding on bald tires and then hydroplaning into the nearest tree or car or house, or simply driving at about 10 miles an hour, just in case. I had my teeth cleaned this morning, and my appointment was at nine. It took me more than 15 minutes to cross Dixie Highway and drive two blocks. Part of that was because I couldn’t turn left out of my street: the cars were backed up beyond my horizon. So I turned right, then went south to the next cross street, then couldn’t turn north on Dixie Highway because it was a parking lot, so crossed to the first northbound back road, and from there arrived (finally) at my destination. I was 20 minutes late, but it didn’t matter because the dental hygienist was even later.

Now my teeth are all shiny and clean and I’m torn. On the one hand, I want lunch. Since it’s raining and cool and damp, I want the universal comfort food for rainy, damp weather: a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup. On the other hand, my teeth are all shiny and clean and I don’t want to eat at all, because I want them to stay feeling this slick.

Having masterfully steered this entry to lunch, allow me to remind you readers that today is “Take Bob to Lunch Day” or, as I like to call it, “FREE THE BOB DAY.” Let me refresh your memories about Bob.

Bob is a small Italian greyhound currently housed in a strip mall “pet store” in California. Bob lives in the window, sharing the hot, tiny space with a chihuahua with gummy eyes. Bob has developed callouses from the sawdust that lines his window, and a sore on his neck from the plastic price tag/collar he wears. Bob is so pathetic at this point that he’s been marked down—twice. Often, Bob is seen to have no food or water. But that is going to change, with our help.

Jules (of Dirty Feet and Lily White Intentions) has negotiated Bob’s release price, but she’s still a little short of the ante. That’s where we come in. Take a look at Bob here. Or here. And read about him

here. And here. And here. And donate your lunch money (just for today, whether you put 2 bucks in the vending machine outside the ladies’ room, or do two glasses of chardonnay with a Cobb salad and your lady friends, or (in my case, I brown-bagged it today, but a normal lunch in the Miami Downtown area runs $7.87 and I rounded up).

Help Jules liberate Bob. (Not his real name, at least not until Jules gets him home, bathed, petted, fed, loved, petted, a nice collar, a soft doggie bed and a chew toy or two.) I tried to link to Bob’s donation page, but couldn’t. So follow one of the links above, and give generously to someone who is opening her heart and home to a doggie in need.

Bob is a small Italian greyhound currently housed in a strip mall “pet store” in California. Bob lives in the window, sharing the hot, tiny space with a chihuahua with gummy eyes. Bob has developed callouses from the sawdust that lines his window, and a sore on his neck from the plastic price tag/collar he wears. Bob is so pathetic at this point that he’s been marked down—twice. Often, Bob is seen to have no food or water. But that is going to change, with our help.

Jules (of Dirty Feet and Lily White Intentions) has negotiated Bob’s release price, but she’s still a little short of the ante. That’s where we come in. Take a look at Bob here. Or here. And read about him

here. And here. And here. And donate your lunch money (just for today, whether you put 2 bucks in the vending machine outside the ladies’ room, or do two glasses of chardonnay with a Cobb salad and your lady friends, or (in my case, I brown-bagged it today, but a normal lunch in the Miami Downtown area runs $7.87 and I rounded up).

Help Jules liberate Bob. (Not his real name, at least not until Jules gets him home, bathed, petted, fed, loved, petted, a nice collar, a soft doggie bed and a chew toy or two.) I tried to link to Bob’s donation page, but couldn’t. So follow one of the links above, and give generously to someone who is opening her heart and home to a doggie in need.

That noise that sounds like the whispering wind? That’s me, sighing in contentment that all is right with the world. The Number 1 Surrogate Daughter came by last night with a pizza (banana peppers and spinach—new to me, but totally d’lish) and I poured the ‘tinis and we sat on the couch to ridicule the clueless. Girl bonding at its best. The RLA didn’t even last until the first commercial break.

For Cycle 9 (like, menstrual cycle, do you suppose? It is a little forced and artificial to call a season a cycle, but it is the house of women… and Jaslene...at least last year. This year we don’t seem to have a tranny in the house. But, never fear, we do have the requisite tragedies and horrible back stories. Nobody survived a plane crash from the diminishing heat of their mother’s dead body (my god, those were good times) but we DO have the daughter of a crack ho, the girl with Asperger’s (again, I have to hand it to Tyra, girlfriend has her finger on the pulse of trend: Autism is HOTT!), the Yalie, the dim blonde who was “born to win this thing”, the stripper (finally one made it into the house, but she don’t take her clothes off, she dances in a bikini, y’all… and she’s the designated weeper this season. She started crying after the third name out of thirteen was announced. Lisa. Lisa the Weeper), the “aesthetician” (read: bikini waxer, and she gave Tyra a faux waxing while we all watched. The look of abject horror on Miss Jay’s face was tooo much… and someone got called MRS. Jay last night which made me think that maybe The Little Orange Man got married), and a girl by the name of (and I am not kidding, although it fits perfectly into a long-running joke) Saleisha, or as I will be referring to her from here on out: Miss Salacious D. She currently has magenta bangs and a $25 dollar weave, but that will be going away very soon, or so Tyra and the Jays assure us.

The personalities started to come out as the 30? 32? 33? semi-finalists got put on a Caribbean cruise to somewhere or other. We see them in the dining hall, picking on each other’s food choices. We see The Girl With the Fauxhawk get up in The Bitch’s grill when The Bitch asks something like, which of you all have eating disorders. Bwhahahahahah. That’s a trick question, of course, because the answer is, if we all eat and purge like this then it’s normal, right? (oh, by the way, one of my Cafe Press shirts bears the immortal question from last year’s sent-home-too-soon girl Kathleen: “I know, right?”)

The Plus-Size Girl is shocked! Shocked!! to see how much skinnier the skinny girls are. But she’s rocking that full-figured size 6, so fuck ‘em. In fact, The Plus-Sized Girl is the subject of much discussion between Tyra and the Jays. Is she really a plus size girl? She’s on the small side of plus. Maybe, just maybe, they allow, she is merely The Real-Size Girl. Whoo-hoo for her, whoo-hoo for Sara.

The girls have to do an impromptu cat walk wearing life preservers and it is as ugly as it sounds. Miss Jay ridicules them and the tears start to flow. We see the duck walk, the pigeon toes, the knock knees, the stoop shoulders, and my personal favorite, the girl who walks like she’s smuggling the family jewels out of Westbumfukstan in her cootch.

We see the girls in their one-on-threes with Tyra and the Jays. There is weeping, there is a gift, there is the faux waxing (really. I may have to rinse my eyes with acid if I think of it too much). There is one girl who comes out stomping like the legendary Camille of season 2? I am Camille and this is my signature horse stomp… One of the girls allows as how she looks like one Adrianne Lima (pronouncing it LYE-ma and prompting catcalls from Tyra). Another has a walk evocative of Naomi (or so says Tyra, proving once more that she is so over that girl, and can too say her name without shattering). And yet another walks on her hands.

We see all the tragic back stories and the ones too tragic for the house are the girl with the fauxhawk who was sexually abused by her foster families and/or raped, the girl who was born with a hemmoraged right eye, but won’t let that stop her, and the bartender from Bahhstin who is even more unintelligible than Noxema or Jaslene. And that, my friends, is saying a good deal. The boat is rocking, and dinner comes a’knocking for one or another of the girls. This means that one or two try to look concerned and a couple others say yahoo, better chances for me.

There is a photo shoot on a beach, where they do varying levels of not-too-bad, with the occasional day-um, she looks good thrown in to confuse us. Jaslene appears here to tell the wannabees how fabulous it is to have won, and prove that speaking like you have a mouth full of gummy bears does not prevent you from winning a contract to be a

spokesperson. She still looks like a tranny, but she seems to have gotten more work than any of the other winners, so what do I know.

The Jays and Tyra look at film and decide who stays and who goes. The best is when they discuss the designated House Bitch (Ebony, the crack-ho’s daughter). The girls have all ratted her out by now, and the thought of beating her into humility causes Tyra and the Jays to cackle like the three witches in

Macbeth. All of us in television land are cackling too, because we know how much fun it will be to watch. Ebony has been gloating over her fabulous $500 weave (and it is pretty fly, I have to admit. How much do you want to bet that she’s the one with the shaved head or Dianna Ross afro make-over?

And then it’s the end, all too soon. Next week there will be DRAMA! FIGHTING! A new, faboo house decorated with lots of pictures of Tyra.

I know, right?

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.