But there was no need to wonder how far off, because the windows were open and we could smell the sizzle and ozone. Lightning! Thunder! Pounding rain! I love Florida weather.

When I was in college, my dorm had a patio between the two wings, so even though it was on the 7th floor, and open, it wasn’t exposed. It faced east, and late at night when the thunderstorms would roll in from over the bay, I’d go out on the patio and sit in the cool and the mist and watch G*d’s own light show. Those are some of my fondest memories of the University of Miami. It wasn’t the same campus as it is now. There were more open spaces, and yet, less landscaping and lushness. The coral pit over by the art department was surrounded by banyan trees, and filled with ferns. Rumor had it that satanic rites took place down there, but the truth was it was just a great place to smoke dope between classes. If you didn’t mind the mosquitoes eating you alive down in the cool, damp shade.

In the past couple of years hurricanes wreaked depredation on the pit, and now it is a sunny, albeit sunken, rock garden with a park bench. The enormous royal poincianas were also taken down, and the old wooden art department is itself an empty and condemned hulk. Sad. The hours and hours I spent in darkrooms, weaving studios and the life drawing classes in that old building are the heart and soul of my college experience. The friendships I made, the professors who had the most impact on my life, they all were connected with that building.

Even my husband, the Renowned Local Artist, and I first met and became friends there. I’d go to his studio and watch him paint. We’d share books. He gave me Dahlgren, which I hated. I gave him Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which he stole.

Amazing how much memory a single flash of lightning can unleash.

For the past twenty years, I have referred to my ex-husband only as The Anti-Christ. There were and are many, many reasons for this. He was verbally and emotionally abusive. He was a border-line sociopath. He was a man who, as my father of blessed memory was wont to say, would rather climb a tree to tell a lie, than stand on the ground and tell the truth. We were married for four years and it took another two to complete the divorce because he played the system like a fucking Stradivarius. I have never used his name because I was afraid that, like Beetlejuice, it would cause him to appear in my life, and that was not something I wanted. Ever.

He has a public reputation as an honest man, and a good man. This is the opinion of people who only know the public facade. They weren’t there to see him kick me under the table when I said something he didn’t like. They weren’t there when he told me that if sex was something I wanted in a relationship, I should take a lover and leave him alone. They weren’t there the night our home was broken in to, and I arrived home while the mud was still wet on the floor, and he wouldn’t come home to help with the police report or calm my fears because it was the night he was getting inducted into Iron Arrow, and what would people say if he didn’t go to the football game to be presented with the other inductees at half-time.

Last week karma caught up to him. I don’t know anything about this case, only plenty about the man. He is guilty as charged, no matter what happens in court.

Are you ready to rumble?  What I wouldn’t give to be in New York City this month. First we had Fashion Week, and tonight and tomorrow it’s the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Last year a PBGV won the hound group and almost had an upset win for Best in Show. Almost.

Tonight is opening night, and as always, I’ll be on the couch with my Jack Russell and my PBGV and we’ll just be going crazy for the doggies.

OPEN: MORNING: INTERIOR

Morning at the girls’ apartment and Jillian is telling Sweet P that Fashion Week absolutely cannot be an all-boys affair. The girls must gird loins and be fabulousness incarnate to the death.

Over in the boys’ cabana, Christian is holding forth, as usual about what a tragedy that rag of Ricky’s was, and how his ruffle wasn’t even seamed, but attached. Quel horror!

With the introduction out of the way, we are whisked to the runway where Heidi is her usual dazzling self in a little cocktail dress.  There are models, there are choices. Ricky stays with his stupid little twee hat and his girl, the other model is sent away. Heidi asks if the designers are ready for their next challenge. They cautiously say yes. Heidi laughs and tells them ain’t that a shame, because the challenge ain’t ready for you. See you tomorrow. Have a nice day.

We meet the designers the following morning in the workroom. Tim sweeps in and tells them they are going on yet another field trip. Christian demands that it be someplace fabulous and fierce. Tim assures him that it will be. They go downstairs to the runway auditorium.

RING AROUND THE ROSIE RAG

Loud noises, banging, thumping, and screams. P describes them thusly: Crazy war noises…Scary, killing people noises. Rami and Jillian are also leery. Christian calls the racket “sex moans.” Miz Shoes, in all her years, has never heard any sex noises like that, unless it came from a particularly large cat in heat , tossing garbage cans and pursued by an even larger, and possibly rabid, raccoon. Miz Shoes wonders anew about our little Christian.

The doors are thrown open and we see: The Divas of the WWE. Chris, with admirable sang froid, says that there are six women, wrestling, pulling hair, kicking…pretty great, actually. And he snickers.

The women introduce themselves, and explain their professional wrestling personas. There is Maria, who is rock-glam. There is Layla, who is a pretty limber dancer/wrestler, as she shows off a very high kick. There are two girls who claim to be the girl next door, and another who is a sex kitten, but “classy”.

The challenge will be to design something for each of these women to wear in the ring.  The designers get to chose who they want to design for. Ricky goes first and picks the dancer. P gets the classy sex kitten. Jillian and Rami take the girls next door. Maria goes to Chris, and Christian takes the girl whose schtick escapes me, but seems to be another sex/rock/glam thing.

Christian’s girl tells him she likes leather and lace, and he is transported immediately into a world of leather chaps with lace cutouts. This is a pairing made in one of the nether regions of heaven. Ricky is all about a one-piece with ruching, and I see the lipstick on the wall.  Chris and his wrestler are another pair. He likes leopard, she like leopard. He likes over the top trannies, she may be one. It’s all good. P is a little overwhelmed by her wrestler, whose whole gimmick is the “robe and reveal”… what ever that may be, but it does come up several times in the episode. It seems to be her signature move: come out into the ring covered up in a big ole robe, and whip it open to reveal…her wrestling onesie. Sparkly and over the top is what her model wants, much to P’s chagrin.

Rami has chosen Barbie-On-Acid magenta/pink spandex for his Girl Next Door Wrestler, and acknowledges that the color is a love it or hate it, make or break with the judges, but that he’s sure he can drape a pair of hot pants that they’ll love.

Christian tells P that her outfit looks like “tranny ice cream” and he’s not sure about the feather boa. P isn’t sure either, but once more she grimly faces the confessional-cam and says that she’s not letting a trailer-trash aesthetic take her out.

KUNG-FU FIGHTING

Day two opens with Jillian dropping her mannequin with a single kick-boxing move. Who knew? Chris is just happy as a tranny in Cher drag over this challenge and is sewing along with his sparkly black spandex and green leopard skin. His vision is “animal in a cage.”

All of a sudden, P realizes that she hasn’t arm wrestled anyone yet. How could this be? She calls out to Christian “Come over here you skinny little twit,” and the two of them get down to some arm wrasslin. In the biggest shock of the episode, he beats her, and then says to the room that “I’m a beast you guys, you just don’t know…” No, but calling the noises of six women in an open ring free for all “sex moans” should have been the first tip.

Tim brings in the models for a fitting and Chris and his model are locked in a love fest over the leopard and black shiny stuff. Christian and his model are equally enraptured with the lace cutouts in her pleatherette chaps. Predictably, he makes her a little jacket with puffy sleeves to go over the top. In more ways than one. But, she loves it. Christian tells us that: “it’s really kinda amazing? She’s rilly fierce, and I’ve met some fierce bitches.”

P’s model, however, is less than thrilled with P’s work. She complains that it is no more than what she could find at any old Strippers Am Us. She wants star-shaped cut-outs over the ass, she wants more, more, more rhinestones and sequins. She wants it all, and she wants it all in one outfit.

Ricky is making a one-piece bathing suit out of orange lycra, with gold braided straps and gold o-rings. Tim is less than blown away. In fact, his jaw is hanging a bit slack in disbelief. He manages to say merely that he is “worried” and “concerned”.

Ricky asks Christian for a snap. Miz Shoes kind of expected Christian to give Ricky a big hand circle finger snap, but he gives Ricky the little fastener he asked for, all the while confessionalizing that he didn’t want to, but Ricky’s piece is just a bathing suit and sucks so bad anyway, what’s the dif. Let him hang hisownself. Tim says that Ricky’s piece looks a little Wonder Woman. Chris looks up from his work station with a look that clearly says, Oh, doesn’t Ricky just wish it did.

Tim tells Rami that the color he’s chosen is iffy, and that he’d hate to see it be Rami’s downfall, but Rami just rolls his eyes and thinks, like that’ll happen. Over at P’s mannequin, Tim is telling her that the bra top looks unrefined and the whole ensemble sort of reeks of Eva Gabor in “Green Acres” and that he really doesn’t want to see her get sent home, either. At all. In fact, Tim shows a great deal of concern and personal affection towards P. Now P’s crying and saying that she isn’t giving her client what she wants because what she wants is criminal, and yet, what she is giving her, the judges are going to hate anyway, and that she is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Actually, what she says is that she’s stuck in a Catch-22, and Miz Shoes wonders if P or anyone else in that room (other than the excellent Tim Gunn) have even read Catch-22.

Chris indulges in a little bitchy back stabbing as he asks about Rami’s hot pink micro shorts, “What are the judges going to say? What can they say? What is Nina Garcia going to say about hot pink spandex pants?” And then he collapses into giggles over the whole concept.

The models come in for their last fitting. P’s girl wants more rhinestones. Christian’s girl is thrilled with her S&M chaps. Chris’ girl calls hers a Superhero outfit. Miz Shoes shudders to imagine what that super power might be, but thinks cracking coconuts between her thighs might play into it somewhere. Ricky’s girl shows off an orange bathing suit with a sequined mini-tent cover up.  Jillian is showing off an electric blue and white strappy thing that’s actually quite good, as rock and roll wrestling clothes go. Rami’s model is happy with her Barbie pink outfit and Jillian is still sewing as Tim calls everyone to the runway.

The guest judges this week are Richie Rich and Traver Rains of Heatherette. The RLA kept asking who and what, exactly they are, and what, exactly their line looks like and has he ever seen anyone wearing it. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask and no.

ROLLING AND TUMBLING

The women of the WWE stomp (and not in a good way) down the runway. We finally see the whole of Christian’s outfit, and true to his design sense, not only are there puffy sleeves on the bolero, but there are ruffles on the ankles of the chaps, as well. Except for that bit of excess, his is a very hott, very successful look for the wrestling ring. Jillian’s girl is wearing thigh-high white spats that give the whole look this sort of Dirty Alice in Wonderland feel. It’s kind of hott.

Ricky’s girl drags her unhappy ass down the catwalk in her ugly orange bathing suit, and even uglier sequined mini-tent. Chris’ Sheena of the Punk Jungle comes out and sells the shit out of his outfit. She is showing some major love, and when she whips off the little leopard hoodie to reveal the black spangled lining, you can hear even NinaGarcia swoon. Hell, Miz Shoes would wear that hoodie.

P’s girl comes out and does the Robe & Reveal and meh. The last model is Rami’s WWE Wrestling Diva Barbie, wearing a draped micro skating skirt over her boy shorts.

The judges make these judgements: Michael Kors thinks that Jillian’s sexy tomboy next door has sizzle and plays a riff on a classic look. Rami’s flirty girl next door had no reference to the Americana theme, and NinaGarcia hated the color. Christian’s outfit was much loved (Miz Shoes bets that Richie Rich tried it on after the show) and it is seen as a sort of Prince/Purple Rain era look. P went for Retro Glamour Girl, and failed: it wasn’t dramatic enough for her client. Chris’ girl is the “Kiss-Cam” girl (who knew?) and the judges are amazed that he was able to make glitter spandex look expensive. Michael Kors notes, with some dryness, that he doesn’t think that Chris was as challenged by this challenge as the other designers. No? And Ricky comes in last with a universally despised tent and orange bathing suit.

Further discussion among the judges finds that Christian’s outfit was somehow sexy without being trashy. And really, in a lineup of assless, leather and lace chaps, these would be the nicest.  NinaGarcia says that her first favorite was Jillian’s costume, and Miz Shoes can totally see NinaGarcia in those white pleather thigh highs. Tragically, Ricky missed the boat – yet again- and the awful mini-tent is dismissed by Michael Kors as a funky, disco hair-cutting smock. Rami’s costume is labled a frou-frou Paris Hilton wannbe (oooh, sting!) and P is called out for giving her girl a Vargas disco ball when she wanted a Zigfield costume.

Jillian is in, Chris is the winner and Christian bares his teeth in what is supposed to be a happy-for-the-other-guy smile, but looks more like he’s getting a tattoo and trying to be butch for his friends. The judges try to make up for his loss by telling him that he did a good job. That and a show in Bryant Park, bitches. Rami is in. P and Ricky are the bottom two, and even though P’s work had no drama, the judges and the viewing audience have had quite enough of Ricky’s stupid little twee hats and constant weepy drama and we finally and at overdue last get to say good riddance by to Little Emo Boy. Quite unpredictably, Ricky does not cry at his auffing.

Next week, another field trip and Jillian is still sewing/gluing when Tim calls the models to the runway.

I’m skimming the news about the tornadoes and I run across this sentence:

President Bush, who said he called the governors of the affected states to offer support, plans to come to Tennessee on Friday. “Prayers can help and so can the government,” Bush said.

Prayers can help? Help what? Help who? They did a splendid job of keeping the winds out of the area yesterday, because that statement surely means that the people in the nearby towns that didn’t get destroyed must have prayed harder than the people who died…right? That’s what the Idiot in Chief was saying, wasn’t it? Or do I just not (being a Jew and therefore bound for Hell) understand how that Christian prayer thing works.

And if his idea of the government helping is New Orleans two years later? Then count me out. For the love of all that is sacred and holy (in Bush’s case, that would be oil, money and power) what is he going to do? Send in the trailers and tents that are affectionately known as “Hurricane Magnets” in my part of the woods and “Tornado Magnets” elsewhere?

Is he going to send in the prayer squad or is he going to actually send in food and generators?

I just really need to stop reading the papers.

Yeah, I know I’ve talked trash about my brother, Biggus Dickus, before but he is my brother. And Friday he will turn 60. So, in honor of that momentous occasion, I give you:

moar funny pictures