I blame this on Starbucks and the fashion industry which have skewed our understanding of size standards. What was once a small is now a tall. What was once normal is now plus sized.

So it’s week four or five already, huh? How time flies whether you’re having fun or not. I know that I missed reviewing the make-over episode, but that was because it was so boring and lame that I just didn’t care. Well, except about Jael, who got the bad make-over, complete with do-over (Tyra changed her mind. Sorry about the pain of getting a weave and the eight hours in the chair. We’re just going to cut everything off and dye your hair brown.) And then she found out one of her friends O.D.d. And then they made her get naked and frolic with ice cream.

This week, however, there is much more going on in the house. What things, you may ask? Well, to start with Renee has decided not to be a bitch any more. (Or any less, either, but it’s the thought that counts.) To that end, she draws a really nasty picture of Jael in a straight jacket, but see? The sleeves aren’t fastened, so that makes it a positive drawing. I know, right?

Jael, sweet but gently bewildered thing that she is (but is she a sistah solja, beautiful bi-racial butterfly?) takes the drawing and pretends to loves it so much that she sticks it up on a shelf with some Asian dog or pig or cat or something.

There is some house action which I cannot remember, mainly because these hamsters are so unforgettable. But then they all pile into the big, vulgar, gas-guzzling Hummer and go for a ride to a park. The limo is stopped by a police person who is directing traffic like s/he’s a Bahamian tourist-trap photo-op…on crack. S/he then executes a couple of John Cleese funny walks and admits that s/he’s not really a traffic cop. Yeah. What was our first clue? (Of course the hamsters all thought it was a real traffic stop. Or at least Renee did.) Turns out s/he’s Benny Ninja of the House of Ninja, and http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12923/">POTES’; dream comes true as one of the founders of vogueing and one of the stars (I think) of Paris Is Burning comes to ANTM and attempts to show the girls (and Jaslene) how to pose. And let me say right now that Ninja beats the pants off the contortionist from last season. He immediately pairs the girls (and Jaslene) up and has them do a muthafuggin’ face-off. Renee is unfortunately not awful. In fact, most of them are not awful. It’s sort of disappointing.

They next have to put their lessons to the test by vogueing their way through one of those LAY-zer mazes/theft deterrent devices so popular in movies like Mission Improbable. And then, the most wonderful thing happens.

Renee confessionalizes that she rilly, rilly needs the prize (a $40 THOUSAND dollar diamond bracelet) because she and her husband (and, one supposes, the son about whom she Would.Not.Shut.Up. in epi one, and whom we have not heard the first word about since) are dead broke and all but eating out of dumpsters and living in their car and she rilly, rilly wants to win to help out her family.

Now, in the world that I live in, helping your family financially means things like, oh, I don’t know, taking a stab here, GETTING A FUCKING JOB! Or, you know, WORKING! Or even sucking it up and going to one of those federal job training programs where you end up with a skill and A JOB!!! But I suppose going on a television reality show is better than using the lottery as your retirement plan. I guess. Maybe. Possibly.

So. Off they go, one at a time, with ole’ Benny Ninja sitting behind a table with a video screen and a big ass buzzer and every time the girl (or Jaslene) breaks a laser beam, he hits that buzzer and makes them go back to the beginning. One by one, with various skill levels (who knew that Dionne-the-Dentist could drop a split like that? Sure made Benny Ninja’s jaw drop. Jael has fun. Sara does good. Natasha makes a few errors but still gets to the end before running out of time. Every single girl goes through and gets a key to a jewel box…even the plus sized girls make it through the limbo sticks. The last girl up is Renee. Our Lady of the Perpetual Whine proceeds to blow it. Totally. Doesn’t finish. Doesn’t get a key. Doesn’t get 40K of bling to pay off her family’s debts and buy her son food. And there goes her resolution to be nice. Bwahahahahahaha. Sorry. Whitney (one of the plus girls, and I’m beginning to think all the speculation about this being a plus sized girl’s season to win may be true) takes home the ice. She notes that although she has taken a semester off from Dartmouth (take that, you skanks) to do this (and she’s not on financial aid) she thinks that she’ll keep the bracelet rather than using it to pay back her pops the 9K she’s costing him by being on TV. To which I say, you go girl. Props to you. And also? My daddy was from West Palm Beach, so way to represent.

The girls and Jaslene go back to the house and Renee gets on the phone and proceeds to have a break down, calling her husband and crying that she doesn’t want to be there any more, and he should come and get her, and all the other girls (and Jaslene) are just awful beeyotchs who can’t hold her crusty undies (Hey! Where’s Moooonique, now? She could teach you something about crusty undies.) and so on and on and on and on and on and on…. until a couple of the other girls (who, I’d like to note are smoking like chimneys this season, much more so than previously) notice that 1)Renee’s not around, and 2) she’s actually hogging up all the phone time. The usual confrontation occurs, and Renee breaks her resolve to be nice (I’m SHOCKED!).

The next scene is the week’s photo shoot. Sur-prize, sur-prize sur-prize, in what must certainly be nothing more than a co-inkydink, this week’s theme is “Death By…” (Sort of like season whatever when Kahlen’s friend gacked and they had to go be the seven deadly sins in the bottom of a grave. The only saving grace here is that they don’t actually make Jael portray an O.D. So.

Renee is up first as death by poisoning, and does unfortunately well. Jay raves. The photographer raves. I rage that they didn’t actually poison the bitch. Renee smugly tells Jay not to tell the other girls how well she did, because they all hate her. Too late. Why, he asks, all innocence and shit. Renee leans into his little apricot-like ear and whispers coyly, “Because I’m a bitch.” Well, alright then.

We get stabbing and shooting (really creepy) and throwing off a building and tossing down the stairs (again… just like I didn’t understand why there was both a bad girl and a ho in high school, I don’t understand why getting thrown from a roof is dynamically different from getting tossed down the stairs, but that’s why I’m not art directing these shoots.) Natasha (who, by the way, did get the Boris and Natasha make over, schnort) is drowned. There is death by electrocution and death by vivisection, death by strangulation and death by (I just looked on the WC site and it seems that three girls got tossed to their deaths…)getting thrown off another building.

The hamsters are all a little skeeved by the realistic make up. Jay is disappointed by Jael’s sadness and poor performance and claims that he didn’t know about her dead friend. I’m a little skeeved by the whole death is fashion thing. I thought that sort of misogeny went out of vogue (HA! Get it?)with Helmut Newton back in the 80s. (Oh, shit. Those terrible 80s again. Will that decade never die?)

At judging, the choice comes down to Dionne who is beautiful but doesn’t know what to do with it and Felicia (aka Baby Tyra) who is just coasting on being pretty and looking (Tyra finally admits) like Tyra. Big surprise, Baby Tyra goes home.

Next week? I’ve already forgotten the teaser. I’m sure it’ll be fabulous, though. Especially if we could fire Miss Jay and hire Benny Ninja.

I’d like to apologize for the random and infrequent posts of late. All I can say is that there is a LOT of stuff about to pour forth from my head, and this is just the first of many, many posts about many, many subjects.

Let’s just get back in the swing here. This is a pop quiz, an essay test, if you will. Please leave your answer in the comments, and it may be as long and detailed as you like.

Question: Who, when and where was the first rock and roll show you went to live?

Answer: Mine was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Pirate’s World in Davie, Florida. Pirate’s World is a now-defunct amusement park. It was 1971 and I went with Scotty Neaill, Jill Clark and Lee Harris. I wore white denim hot pants and navy blue & red granny boots. I don’t remember the top. It was a couple hours drive to Davie and I was thrilled that my folks let me go. I’d had the chance to see 3 Dog Night at the Miami Beach Convention Center a couple of weeks earlier and didn’t care enough for them to go. But Ike and Tina? That was a different story.

And that was my baptism in the church of rock and roll. Never looked back, either. So? You guys? Who was the first?

In episode two, the girls go back to school. Or go to school. They also get schooled in walking by the dragalicious Miss Jay, are forced to hold a “fashion show” on the school basketball court, and do a photo shoot of high school cliches: bad girl, teacher’s pet, class clown, unpopular loser weird girl, class ho, class brain, class jock…

You know, I hated high school so much that even reliving it like this makes me queasy. Let’s just say that I was the class weirdo, except much better dressed.

In what must surely come as a surprise to you, Renee whines and bitches and cries. Jaslene exhibits amazing powers of self-delusion, Natasha still doesn’t understand English and Jael proves more and more endearing to me.

So. First we have Tyra mail, and in what must be a first after 7 seasons of ANTM, the girls figure out the clue: even babies learn to do this. Instead of the usual crickets chirping, we hear some girl sing out “WALKING LESSONS!” And where better to have that than at a high school band practice where Miss Jay explains that high school marching bands are known for their precise choreography and fine, high stepping. Uh-huh. Where I came from that translated into precision milling-about-smartly. But I digress. The girls get dragged off to the track oval and are given directions for walking in groups of three. I had had two cocktails by the time we got to this point, and I was chatting with RJ and MJ, and I have no discernible sense of rhythm (unless I’m standing in front of the amp banks at a rock show and you’d have to be dead not to feel the rhythm) and I can still tell you what that complex routine consisted of: Three girls start. The middle girl stops at the half way mark. The two girls cross at the end of the catwalk, stop & pose, turn and go back up the cat walk to the middle girl. They stop and the middle girl goes to the end of the catwalk, poses, turns and comes back. When they are three abreast they all walk to the beginning/end point on the runway. Next three girls go out and do it all again.

I’m sure you will all be shocked to discover that this was way, way too complicated for a couple of the girls. For the other girls, this was just a floor show for dissing the rest of the girls: cackling and crowing about how they (which ever one was doing the speaking at the moment) had the Very Best Walk and the rest of these girls are pitiful at best, and borderline epileptics at worst. Miss Jay critiques the girls and this results in Natasha thinking that he said she was a “Martian.” What he said was that he didn’t know if she was walking or marching.

Then they go inside to the gym to repeat their steps in a “real” show featuring (and I’m not kidding, but Oh. My. God. how I wish I were) Prom Dresses through the ages. We see monstrosities from the eighties and would someone please put that decade out of its misery already and stop dragging its rotting zombie corpse back to torture humans with eyeballs? Metallic fabric, bows bigger than ponies, attached to any body part not in need of a pony-sized bow and puffy sleeves to match.

There were dresses that theoretically came from today, but I couldn’t see much difference, and then the third sweep down the walk is defined as “ghetto fabulous” and consists of skin-tight micro-skirts, cowl necklines that plunge to below the girls’ belly buttons, a lot of animal prints and a certain touch o’ ho. Sara works it so well that her boobs pop out of the six-inch wide neckline. Jael opines that Sara’s boobs escaped and that she found it very liberating for Sara and she’s proud for Sara that it happened next to her (Jael). See why I love Jael? She is so…funny. Funny ha-ha. And maybe, yes, a little “funny”. But who among us would be secure throwing that particular first stone?

Samantha gets to wear some itty-bitty thing that she felt should be burned because it wasn’t a dress, it was a blouse and boy-howdie, she wouldn’t have been allowed to go to the prom in Alabama lookin’ all hootchie-mamma like that. Renee claims to have been amazing, and she was… in the way that watching the space shuttle blow up is amazing. Renee does not like hearing that she was unaware of the other girls on the runway with her (and the difference between that and her normal level of awareness of other people is what?) and says that it didn’t matter what the judge thought, the audience ate her up and loved her.

See. The audience were high-school students, and really and come on, who cares what they think? Except the other high-school students who, the last time I checked, weren’t the people in charge of ANTM. But I digress. The winner on the catwalk was Britney, who really is beautiful in a classic sort of way, and doesn’t appear to be a ho-skank like the last Britne

y we had a couple of seasons ago. Britney wins a trophy. It is a least four feet tall, looks like a high school basketball trophy, except instead of a little metal b-ball player on the top, there is a gold stiletto pump. I squee’d a little bit and told RJ that I so want the trophy. There’s plenty of time till my birthday, sweetie.

Sara voices over that the trophy is “redonkulous” and thereby wins love eternal from RJ and me because that proves that Sara reads Cute Overload.

The next day, the girls go back to the school for a photo shoot where they do the whole cliche thing. To get these looks, Mr. Jay has brought in the official hair stylist for Clairol’s Herbal Essence line. She says things like “This will give you perilously straight hair.” She says it with a perilously straight face.

The girls all have to pose as “types”, Sara is the class flirt and Samantha is the class ho. Sara nails it, Samantha almost passes out from Mr. Jay’s art direction (put your hand on the inside of your thigh like you’re masturbating). And I’d just like to say right now that Mr. Jay is less orange and a lot funnier this season. And also, maybe, doing better art direction. Maybe. It’s only week two. Jaslene is magnificent as the weirdo, but lemme tell you, when Nigel says to send the photos and not the girl to casting because the girl can’t get the gig, but the girl in the photos can… I’m just thinking that Jaslene won’t be in at the finish.

Britney is dressed like a fat frump as the valedictorian, because we all know you can’t be smart and have fashion sense, the cheerleader shot looks a lot like the ho (letter sweater, but no shirt and the sweater is wide open.) and I still don’t understand why there is both a bad girl and a ho… they were pretty much the same in my high school, but that was 30 years ago, so maybe everybody specializes these days. The girl who everybody calls BabyTyra does well as the jock. Jael rocks the house as the nerdy bookworm. Natasha has no clue what the words “teacher’s pet” mean, and says that they don’t have that in the Soviet Union. Diane (one of the two plus sized girls) is stunning as the class president. Renee has to be the class clown and she blows chunks. Then she complains that it wasn’t fair that she had to play against type when nobody else did and then she cries. (RJ: “I’m going to send her a wheel of cheese to go with that whine.”) She also whines about having the other girls on the set, and why didn’t they ask her if that was alright? She almost pops a vein when the photographer suggests she get some posing advice from Jael. RJ and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

There is an interlude at the house where we see pixelated nudity (Jael) and horseplay and what not and we see Samantha sniveling about being all alone in the house and how she just isn’t very outgoing. MJ astutely notes that “sure you are, you’re going out of the house.”

Finally, we get to judging. Predictably, Jaslene complains that the other girls are already dissing her, Natasha mistakes the comment that she was the hardest girl to art direct since Ann the Man for a compliment (“I remember Ann, she was one of the most beautiful girls on this show ever.”) and Renee rolls her eyes at everyone else’s compliments. In the end, it comes down to Natasha and Samantha and MJ proves to be right. Samantha is out going the door back to Alabama, where she’ll never have to pretend to be a lesbian or ho again.

Next week is makeover week. Squeeeee!

The bitches and the hos are back with a vengence in season eight of America’s Next Top Model. I keep saying this every season, but I don’t see how they can find any dumber girls. Really, this season’s crop is astonishingly stupid and vapid, and it’s going to be the best train wreck yet.

We start with casting, and are spared any of last year’s embarassing moments, like the pole dancer who insists to Tyra that being a stripper is the same thing as being a model, rilly. On second thought, I sort of missed that. We don’t have any tragedies like being in a plane wreck, kept alive by the diminishing heat of our dead mother’s body, or night blindness, or psoriasis or even being the blackest child in the family. I didn’t miss that. We don’t have anything terribly memorable except the girl with the sewn-in wig (which I think was also repossessed, but it might have been two different girls with weaves) and the other girl who just wouldn’t shut up. Or leave. Or say anything that was worth listening to the on and on and on and on and on and on to hear.

The first thirty odd (really odd) girls are picked and off we go to Model Boot Camp, where I have high hopes that these B&Hs will learn how to walk in high heels before they get to the first judging. Of course, I have high hopes about Mr Jay not being orange and Twiggy developing an attitude, too, so who am I to say.

Right away my hopes are dashed with the “name 5 American designers” question which results in chirping crickets. Personalities begin to display when Sara (the semi-pro) knows who Richard Avedon is, and Renee starts bitching about how Sara only won because she’s a photographer and so of course “knew who that dude was” and the whole thing isn’t fair. This, we will discover, is her mantra, along with the particularly overused “I’m only doing this for my baby.”

You know, I don’t have kids, so maybe it is a normal thing for a mother to do, leave an infant at home to go off and participate on a reality show for the fame whoriness of it. We see a lovely picture of Renee in her white wedding gown, holding her infant son. Really, it was almost touching. But, just to be terribly old-fashioned, since when did a white wedding dress get accessorized by a bouquet of baby? I thought the presumed accessory was an intact hymen, but then again, I am old-fashioned.

The first cut is the deepest, and we get reduced by a number of forgettable, semi-attractive girls, and one Betty Paige by way of the tattoo parlor wannabe who was shocked to think that having a life-size and somewhat realistic tattoo of the bleeding sacred heart of Jesus on her sternum might make for a minus when you want to be a couture model. Then it’s off to our first photo shoot and we have a political statement theme, in which the girls must front for whatever random “controversial” position the PTB have come up with. There is pro-choice, and anti-abortion; gay marriage and straight; pro-fur and anti-fur; anti-gun and NRA shill; vegan and carnivore; death penalty pro and con. Con, get it? Jeez I crack myself up. Unfortunately, these were concepts that went way beyond the limited wattage of our contestants. In particular, Sara couldn’t get with the life behind bars, Renee didn’t like having to not like guns (I’m guessing she’s a military wife, what with being 20, a mother and living in Hawaii.) Katherine could not figure out why anyone wouldn’t like to wear fur, Jael and Natasha needed to swap positions on the whole choice thing, and the girl who was pro-straight marriage looked as stiff and unbelievable as the giant Ken doll they had posing with her. Nigel was the photographer, and he and Mr. Jay looked pretty miserable at the raw materials they had to work with.

Then, it was off to Goodwill to make an outfit of personal expression in three minutes, plus a charity runway show, money raised to go to Goodwill. I will spare you the details, because they are painful. Jael wins, and Renee bitches that it wasn’t a fair challenge because Jael shops in second hand stores, anyway.  Jael wasn’t happy about winning, either, because she thinks that will make the other girls like her less. Here’s a clue for you, honey: none of them like you anyway, and they are all backstabbing bitches, or haven’t you watched this show before?

Speaking of Natasha, which I was a paragraph ago, she is 19, Russian and married to a 40-year old man about whom she can only say he changed her life and brought her to America. Uh-huh. I knew one of those guys. He did the Russian bride thing twice, and the first one left when she learned enough English to figure out he was sort of creepy and the second one left as soon as she could without anyone questioning the validity of her green card marriage. I’m sure that Natasha isn’t one of those, right? I’m also harboring this deep, deep desire to see Tyra give her this makeover. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.

Anyway, after the juding, wherein Tyra et al admit that this is the worst bunch of wannabes they’ve ever seen, and Katherine allows as how she didn’t get the whole concept of anti-fur, even though Mr. Jay and Nigel explained it to her…a lot, and how couldn’t you just get fur from already dead animals, because “animals die of natural causes sometimes, don’t they?” that is enough for even Tyra to send her away for being stupid beyond all comprehension.

Whee! I can’t wait for next week, can you?

OK. First of all, I am in considerable pain, and not at all comfortable, and in reality, the only numb parts are the fingertips of my right thumb and forefinger, with a minimal amount of numby-ness in my middle finger.

There is a searing, shooting, radiating pain coming from somewhere between my shoulder blade and my spine, and I can’t turn my head. I appear to have a pinched (very pinched) nerve located between C5-6 and another or a consequential, sympathy something or other at T5.

This is my schedule today: hot shower, bed, ice pack. Rinse. Repeat. I shouldn’t even be here on my computer, and I sure as hell haven’t been able to go to work.

The Percoset did nothing, the two Aleve barely made a hint of a dent in the pain. I have a newly acquired chiropractor, and I’m in love with him.

There are many stories to tell from the SoBe Wine & Food, and photos to upload, but I’m afraid they are going to have to wait until I can sit up without pain, or at least until I can stand up without the weight of my arm causing me to writhe in agony.

Until tonight, when I camp out in front of the TeeVee to watch the return of the Bitches and the Hos on ANTM, I am back to the shower/bed/ice pack regimen.

And so, as a very great journaler once said, to bed.

RJ, MJ, The RLA and I are off to the SoBe Wine & Food Festival. There will be no posts, no comments approved, no e-mail read until sometime Sunday night. I will be too full of yummy food to care. I promise to take pictures and tell tales.

An astute new (and presumably very young) reader accosted me in my comments this morning with the following question, which I quote in its entirety, and exactly as she typed it (in all caps, shouting at me first thing in the morning… sigh)

“WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO JUDGE PEOPLE ...SO WHAT IF THEY WANT TO HANG THEIR BACKPACKS ON THEIR CHEST…ECT ECT.”

First of all, sweetiedarling, the correct abbreviation for which you are searching, is ETC, as in etcetera. Not ecksettra, or however you are pronouncing it in your head.

Secondly, what gives me the right to judge people is this: I am the self-appointed arbiter of taste for the universe and it would be a much more attractive place if people would just take my advice.

Thirdly, what gives me the right to be arbiter of taste for the universe is that I have exquisite taste, and if I ever did make a fashion mistake, there is no film hanging around to prove it.

Finally, regarding your final statement, the one in which you opine about the frequency of my sex life versus the number of pairs of shoes you own… what, exactly, was the point you were attempting to make? I came of age in the 70s, child, and I’ve been married to the Hottie Renowned Local Artist for 15 years, so I hope you have a spare room or two to house all those pairs of shoes you claim to own. And I hope you keep them all polished, stored neatly in boxes, with tissue stuffed in the toes to keep their shape. I also hope that you make sure the heels are always in good repair.

I don’t even know where to begin this essay. Anna Nicole Smith’s body is decaying and the vultures and parasites are fighting over the remains. There are three men (at least) who claim to be the father of her child. One was with her, one used to be her lover, and the third is a fame whore who may or may not have had a relationship with her at the time of the child’s conception.

The estranged mother is blaming drugs and the boyfriend for her daughter’s estrangement from her, the boyfriend for the drug abuse. The ex-lover is blaming the boyfriend and drugs for his loss of his ex-girlfriend. The boyfriend/lawyer is just lamenting his loss and trying to bury her next to her son, and keeping his(?) daughter safe. Which is not to say that I believe him, have sympathy for him or find him to be less of an opportunistic leech than the rest of the parties involved.

And then we have this article, which talks about how so many Playboy Playmates have died tragically young. From murder or drug overdose primarily, it seems. Toss in a few car wrecks and plane crashes and you have quite the list. But the people quoted are all like: Oh, the tragedy of being beautiful.

Oh, the tragedy of being objectified, I say. Would Dorothy Stratton have been murdered by her jealous ex if she weren’t the centerfold? Another questionable source claims that ANS wanted her tiny little baby to be slightly underfed so that she would be “sexy”. At three months old.

Which brings us back to her own mother, she who is blaming the world for the estrangement, drugs, etc. of her daughter’s short and overblown life. Well, sweetiedarlings, we can all ask nature or nurture and we can ask it all we like, but there has to be some sort of responsibility somewhere from the cradle to point at which she left home.

Honestly, I don’t know where to end this essay, either. It all seems to me to be a terrible indictment of American pop culture, American values, the ridiculous scramble after money and the obscene desire for fame above all.* Fame without merit. Paris Hilton kind of fame, not Chuck Yeager kind of fame.

Finally, though, in the middle of all this circus, there is one person with whom I am personally familiar. This morning’s Miami Herald announced that the court-appointed attorney for the infant Danielynn is Richard Millstein. Richard was the lawyer for the Antichrist when we got divorced. He flayed my lawyer. He left me with little, he managed for me (the poor artist) to split my art collection with the rich lawyer I was divorcing, and even give my old car to the same rich lawyer so he could give it to his new girlfriend’s kid. And even though I will never forgive the Antichrist, Richard was just doing his job.

Richard and I sat on the board of the local AIDS organization together a few years later, and I can, in all honesty, say that I have never met a more sincere and caring gentleman. He is, year after year, the top fund raiser for CareResource. He is courteous and mild mannered (outside of the courtroom). In all of this mess, I know in my heart that Richard will see past the bullshit and make sure that the best of all possible outcomes is secured for this little girl.

At least until she goes home to live with one or another of the people who made her mother what she was.

* My dear dead Grandma used to say that fool’s names and fool’s faces oft appear in public places. She also used to refer to persons who were “all dressed up like Astor’s pet horse.”  Which is amusing enough, but Grandma lived in Newport back in the day and so probably actually SAW Mrs. Astor’s pet horse decked out in its finery.

Marcia, over at The Pink Shoe wrote a little story about a cooking event that culminated in The Firemen coming over and evacuating her apartment building. It was funny, and rather than tell this story in her comments, I’m using her tale as a springboard to tell you all about The Night The Firemen Came To My Dinner Party.

It was long ago, and not so far away, and I was living in a wreck of an old house in Coconut Grove. It had peeling, cracking walls, and wooden floors and an old, beat up stove with a short and one melted burner (that is another story altogether) in a tiny galley kitchen.

I was separated from the Antichrist, and my girlfriend Rocky was living with me until she got the tickets to move to LA. It was late in December and I was hosting my annual goose dinner; the first without the Antichrist (and it was him and his raised-by-wolves family that prompted me to begin holding annual goose dinners, but that is yet another story for another time). In celebration of my liberation, the guest list had grown to where I needed to roast two geese. And there began my problems.

I didn’t have a roasting pan large enough to hold two geese, but I’m a resourceful girl, and made one out of two disposable foil pans, using tin snips, tin foil and some foil pan origami. Side by side, they filled my little oven completely.

Have you ever cooked a goose? They are Very Fatty, and need constant attention so that they don’t cook up greasy. This attention takes the form of repeated poking with a sharp object to drain the fat from the skin. This rendered fat, by the way, is a most excellent cooking fat, and adds a subtle flavor to things like soups, when you use it to saute the onions or vegetables before adding them to the stock. Using a tablespoon of goose fat also makes for the world’s best matzoh balls. But I digress.

So there is soup, there is home made bread, there are vegetables and desserts all cooked. The table is set, the ice bucket is full. Rocky is showered and dressed, and I’m about to go and do the same. I poke the geese a few more times for good luck. Which does not come. No. What comes is very bad luck, in the form of the sharp object going through the bottom of the thin foil roasting pan. Which then proceeds to drip goose fat onto the heating elements. Which then proceeds to burst into flames.

Well. I am on that issue like white on rice. I slam all the doors to the kitchen shut, open all the kitchen windows and the back screen door and start yelling at Rocky to bring me every fan in the house, and point them out the windows, blowing the smoke out of the house and away from the fire alarms.

She does that, but she also (and I’m sorry to say this Rocky) panics. I, on the other hand, am remembering everything I ever learned about cooking fires in home ec. Here is what is going though my mind:

Do not open the oven door. That will only cause the fire to flare up and burn off your eyebrows and eyelashes. (And the geese, which cost a fucking fortune.)

If you are foolish enough to open the oven door, you have to throw baking soda on the fire to put it out, because it is a grease fire. (And if you miss, you will throw baking soda all over the geese, which cost a fucking fortune, so you really don’t want to do that.)

Turn off the oven, and don’t open the door. The fire will (eventually) run out of oxygen (in theory, because I’m not sure how good the seals are on this old wreck) and the heating elements will cool enough that the grease will not continue to burn. This is my best option, because the geese are almost done, and they will continue to coast on the retained heat.

Ergo: do nothing except turn off the stove and wait. Except. Remember I said that Rocky had panicked? She’d called the fire department and was now trying to tell them where I lived. I grabbed the phone from her and started negotiations with the fire department.

“Yeah. A grease fire. No, it’s almost pretty much close to being out.”

“Yeah. Wooden floors.”

“No. I won’t give you my address. Not unless you promise that you won’t send a truck. I’m having a dinner party and the guests are due any minute and having a fire truck in the driveway just Will Not Do.”

“No. No truck. No lights. No sirens. No guys in raincoats.”

“Look, if you insist on coming over, just send a single guy on his way home. There’s room at the table.”

Well, I go off and shower and dress, and the guests, in fact, do start arriving, and every time there is a knock at the door, I say, “O, that must be the firemen.” and everybody chuckles. Until there is a knock on the door, and there in my driveway is an entirely too large red fire truck, with its lights flashing and about six guys in rubber coats in my front door. “YOU LIED!” I shriek.

In they come, I pretend to be Noel Coward, and sashay through the living room, trailing a string of firemen behind me like baby ducks in their yellow rubber coats. “Firemen,” I say, “these are my guests. Everybody? These are the firemen.”

They follow me into the kitchen where they allow as yes, I have had a grease fire which is now entirely out, and the geese are entirely gorgeous and maybe they need to take them (or at least one of them) back to the station for evidence of said fire. I tell them over my dead body, and at that moment, the last pair of guests arrive, pounding up the back steps and into the kitchen in a panic because the entire driveway is filled with a red fire truck flashing its lights. “See?” I say to the firemen, “this is EXACTLY what I did NOT want.”

Well, the firemen left (without the geese, but with a little something to tide them over), and more martinis were poured, and good times were had by all and my friend the Chuckster to this day says those were the Best Geese Ever, and could I figure out how to replicate that smoked flavor without burning up my kitchen?

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.