Overheard In Austin

The other evening as some friends and I were walking back to our cars after a lovely late-night swim at Barton Springs, I overheard something I cannot get out of my head. Has that ever happened to you? You hear somebody you don't know say something you don't understand about somebody or something you are completely unaware of, and WHAM! You're hooked. Well it happens to me all the time.

For example, a few months ago I was in the airport and I spent an eternity trying to figure out what on earth a certain young lady had done to the older gentleman by her side when i heard him to say to her, "I cannot believe you just did that." I think it was the way he said it that grabbed my attention, really. No disgust, no excitement, no quiet resignation. It was completely flat, as if he were a robotic voice. "I-can-not-be-lieve-you-just-did-that."

Well? WHAT?! WHAT DID SHE DO?! Are they related? Is he her father? Maybe he is her father's best friend and they are embarking upon a torrid and taboo affair of love. And she... I don't know. Left her parents a note, telling them what she was doing... AND WITH WHOM. "Oh great, now not only am I going to jail, but your father will kill me. I cannot believe you just did that." Maybe he's her science teacher and they were on the way to the National Science Fair Championship of the Universe and she... I don't know. Forgot to pack the baking soda. "Oh, great. Now the model volcano won't erupt. I cannot believe you just did that."

Ach. So many possibilities, so few answers.

Well this is what I heard the other day, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out what they might have been talking about, so I'm enlisting your help, blog. It was a group of men and women in their twenties, slightly hipster-hippie looking, and one poorly-shaven young guy said, in tones of incredulous certainty, "No, sex makes it worse!" Got that? Incredulous certainty. That's what's got me going around in circles. I mean, if it were... I don't know. Something that OBVIOUSLY sex would make it worse, then he wouldn't have sounded so incredulous, would he. Moreover, his comment sounded as if he were answering somebody's suggestion that perhaps sex would make "it," whatever "it" is, better. Like he's tried it and, much to his surprise, sex made it worse. I am truly stumped.

So.... what were they talking about? On your marks, get set..... Go.

A Little Wonderment For Tuesday

Normally I find inspirational posters and videos and cross-stitch thingies completely annoying. Especially that one with a kitten clinging desperately to a branch that says, "Hang in there!" That one makes me gag and want to hit things repeatedly with a crowbar. I mean, for God's sake WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE SAVE THAT LITTLE KITTEN FROM DYING.

This video, however, is a different story because it's COOL! I mean, yeah, you can totally ignore the last 20 seconds where they gently lecture you that if you have not failed you've never really lived - because honestly, I'd prefer to believe that I will encounter nothing but uproarious success in my life, over and over and over again. But all the stuff they tell you as the build-up to that? WOW. I mean, really. Who knew? Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go write that novel I'm always saying I'll write one day.

Here's a Little Secret

Today I'm making soup and cleaning house, and it occurred to me that I might be sitting on the greatest secret of all time. You want to know what makes house cleaning fun? I put on my favorite musicals while I do it, so as I'm on my hands and knees scrubbing the wooden floor, I'm singing along at the top of my lungs with Fraulein Maria as she yodels "I Have Confidence." While I fold my laundry I dance along with Marion the Librarian, and while I dust the furniture or rub leather conditioner into my battered old couch I'm humming along with Judy Garland as she finds love during "Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolley."

What can I say. I might be a nutter, but at least I'm having fun. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to miss "76 Trombones," and so I must run. Want to watch it with me?

Grant Me One Wish...

So here I sit, putting myself through the nauseating and slightly self-abasing process of applying for grants, fellowships, and other forms of funding for the next year of my graduate schooling. I can never decide whether I find the process amusing in a "hey, let's all play make-believe and imagine how marvelous this project could be!" kind of way, or whether I find it depressing. Because instead of actually working on my dissertation, I'm spending inordinate amounts of time convincing people to give me money next year so that I can continue to work on my dissertation. I mean, if I weren't working on grants, I would be working on my diss, so maybe if I weren't doing this I could finish this year and therefore have no need for money for next year? Yeah, well. Wishful thinking.

My anorexic dog Birdie, on the other hand, recently discovered a food she likes (hint: baaaaaaa) and ate herself into a coma this morning. So far she's been sleeping curled up on the sofa in the exact same position for 4 hours and 20 minutes, and that's only counting from when I first noticed that she hadn't moved in a long time and got up to check her for a pulse. All's well, but the Great Birdie Watch of 2009 commences. I'll let you know if she ever regains consciousness, or if she will happily snooze forever, dreaming of all the little lambs that died to feed her carnivorous appetite.

A Great Face for Radio.

Ok, so the radio idea I mentioned in my last post. This is a work in progress, and believe you me, I am open to suggestions of any and all sorts. Here's my plan. The world is huge, right? It's huge and diverse and has fascinating histories of all sorts, so wouldn't it be cool to learn about some of the coolest stuff on the planet? People all over the world spend their professional lives digging up obscure things to write dissertations, articles, and books about, and the vast majority of those dissertations, articles, and books sit on shelves and collect dust, except when some other person researching an obscure topic reads them to further their own work. All in all, it's a great big world of knowledge that nobody outside the ivory tower is actually learning, and that is just plain wrong. Because while each individual article or PhD topic might sound a little abstruse ("Notes on a Balinese Cockfight," anyone?), when you take the time to ask a few questions, it often turns out to be fascinating, informative, and widely applicable to the world we live in today.

Here's an example: my sister Umulu wrote an honors thesis in college called something like, "Changing Concepts of Time in Post-Bolshevik Russia." When she first told me her topic, my initial reaction was, "Gawp. What the eff does that even mean? No, never mind, don't tell me, it sounds boring." Well I couldn't have been more wrong. It was fascinating. I just had never thought about what it might mean for an agricultural society to be forced - literally forced by a powerful central government - to make a rapid shift towards industrialization. Their concept of time, which previously had revolved around seasons, cycles, and circadian rhythms, became immediately subject to factory whistles - minute and second hands on a clock. In short, looking at thematic portrayals of time in literature, periodicals, propaganda, and art illustrated a greater point about how Russian peasants acclimatized to rapid industrialization and profound social change. Or, if that doesn't tickle your fancy, I have a friend that's studying astrology in 16th century Mexico, and another that's writing about PIRATES!

So that, in a nutshell, is what I want to do. I want to find people that are researching cool ideas in history, anthropology, art, musicology, science, etc, and interview them. Nobody is going to read their dissertations, but if I can get them to simplify the ideas, take it out of academic jargon and just talk about it in every-day normal human language, wouldn't that be cool? We could talk about their research process, future plans, and how the whole shebang applies to modern life. What an amazing way to learn!

So here's where I need your help, if help you are willing to offer. I'd like to know the following things:

a) Whether the idea sounds good, or like a giant snooze. If it sounds like a giant snooze, how could I make it more interesting?

b) What should I call the program? I had an early plan to call it "Shit You Didn't Know About Places You've Never Been," but then I realized you can't say "shit" on public radio, so there went that idea. I also toyed with calling it "A Great Big World," or maybe, "The Continued Adventures of A Great Big World." Or... yeah. That's all I've got for now. Help?

Rejuvenation Station.

Anybody out there? (Tap, tap, tap).

Is this thing on?

Hello?

Testing, testing, sssssibilance, sssssibilance...

OH! There you are! How nice.

My precious petunias! Many thanks for waiting patiently while I sorted out my general state of ennui. Now I am better! I had a little bit of a personal crisis of confidence, or maybe it was a crisis of inspiration? Definitely it was a crisis of OH MY GOD I've been in grad school for four years - FFFFOOOUUUUUURRRR YYYYEEEEAAAAAAARRRSSS - and I'm still a freaking gee-dee emmer-effing student. The following are the ways I would have defined my current job recently. STUDENT: one who is in no way in charge of her life. STUDENT: one who is in the process of being beaten down to a quivering intellectual pulp, only to be awarded a fancy degree when the last smidgen of resistance has collapsed. STUDENT: one who occasionally freaks the hell out and needs to regroup so as to maintain the illusion of control over his or her own life. The problem with a PhD program is that by the time you've been in for FOUR YEARS and are ready to just about scream bloody murder, to say screw this, I'm out of here, is it all right if I just turn in a one-page summary of my research findings... well, that's when it's got you by the short and curlies, because for the love of all that is holy, are you really going to walk away from four years of work? I mean, come on! You're over half-way there! Just duck your head down and keep plugging away. So I had to deal with that.

Want to know what I came up with? OK, I'll tell you. I am not a student. I mean, yes I am a student, but I'm not a STUDENT. The problem was that in the past few years what with master's thesis and comprehensive exams and 9 month research trips in Nicaragua that I really couldn't wait to be over, I'd gotten so good at keeping my eyes down and my steps plodding that I forgot all about HOW AWESOME life is, and, concomitantly, how awesome I am. I am Amazing Cheastypants! This world is a crazy and excellent place! I love to travel and learn! I have a fantastic family and wonderful friends! I am so lucky! I love to dance! The air sparkles when I walk through a room, and my acres and acres of beautiful bouncy hair bring gasps of joy and wonderment to people everywhere! Naturally, I have a biased opinion of my own grandeur and excellence, so feel free to disagree, but this is my blog, and if I can't toot my own horn here, then what's the freaking point.

Anyway, this is what I came up with. I will continue to work on the dissertation, and in two years folks will be calling me DOCTOR Amazing Cheastypants, but in the interim, I need to do something to harness my creative juices, celebrate the things I think are awesome in this world, and build a space in my professional life in which I AM THE BOSS OF ME. So I think I'm going to start a talk radio show. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

A Hiatus, Until Further Notice

Hey blog, I wanted to give proper notice that I'm putting Cheastypants on hiatus. I don't know for how long, but for right now, I kind of want to stop. So I'm stopping. If I decide to start 'er up again I'll make the rounds of comments and emails and facebooks and whatnot to let you I'm posting again. Thanks so much for reading - I'll still bop about my favorite blogs to say hello from time to time. Happy summering, y hasta luego!

The Amazing Adventures of a Deaf, Blind, Toothless, Anorexic Bird Dog

You are not going to believe what my dumb dog Birdie did the other day. In a fit of whimsy while hanging out in my sister's back yard, I let her off the leash to explore. Because really, how much trouble could she get in, right? Ha. Joke's on me. I keep thinking she's normal, you know? Like she isn't blind (did I tell you about the cataracts the vet just told me about?). Or deaf. Or toothless. And have I mentioned her strange eating disorder? It turns out 14-year-old stick figures aren't the only creatures that yearn to be runway models. Birdie is sittin' pretty at 30% underweight, and no matter how I entice her, will not snack up on anything other than chicken, which, it turns out, gives her hives. But every time I think to myself OH GOD WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO, I look at her cute little cute cute cute cute cute little face, and I completely forget to worry. Look. Here's a picture of her being cute. Please ignore the devil eyes. Cataracts, it turns out, are reflective.



Not only cute, but look at her tongue! CUUUUUUUUUTE!



A little more about that tongue later, but first I'd better get back to answering the cliff-hanger with which I began this post. Off your tenterhooks, bloggers, I'm about to tell you what on earth my dumb dog Birdie did the other day when I let her off the leash in my sister's yard. The cast of characters involve the following: a hole in the fence and a patch of briary burrs. In North Carolina we called them "hitchhikers," but people in Texas look at me like I'm speaking another language when I use that term. They are pea-sized burrs that stick to your pants as you walk by them, scratch you up when you try to pick them off, and most importantly, bury themselves deep in doggie fur. DEEP in doggie fur. Birdie essentially face planted right in a particularly prolific hitchhiker bush, and when I finally looked over the fence to see if she'd climbed through, she looked up at me and her black face was light brown. I mean, completely, entirely, 100% carpet-bombed with hitchhikers. You know in the movies when somebody gets a pie in the face and then they're left with a whipped cream face-mask? It was like that, except not whipped cream. Hitchhikers. They were also dug in deep in her legs, stuck in her paws, and covering her cute little underbelly. Birdie was a total mess. Umulu and I got some scissors and started cutting them out of her fur, but the task was overwhelming. I heeded one of my dear Aunt Mary's famously effective maxims --"this is one of those situations that will become enormously less stressful if I simply throw a little money at it." -- and a professional groomer took care of the rest.

I was worried about how close a shave they'd have to get her. Birdie's long silky hair is one of her finest features. Will she look silly without it? The answer, in case you were wondering, is NO. If anything, she's actually even cuter, which I hadn't thought possible. And the best side benefit? I had long suspected that she wasn't entirely gifted at keeping her tongue in her mouth, but the long hair obscured my view of what is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. Blog, let me introduce you to Birdie's tongue.

I think it's because she doesn't have any teeth to keep it in. Sometimes it pokes out the front:



And sometimes when she's feeling tired, it sort of slips out the side:



Can you see it? Here's a close-up:



I can't take too many pictures or it makes her self-conscious. Look at this face. You know what she's saying? Hey, Mom, quit it. Are you making fun of me?

Don't Let The Clerical Collar Fool You

My mother hates me. That's the only explanation.



It started so harmlessly. Picture it: a cool day in North Carolina, and I hadn't brought enough warm clothes with me when I came home, so I asked my mother to borrow a sweatshirt. Sure no problem, here you go, and then WHAM. The old sucker punch, the one-two hit to both eyes. 'Oh, honey, I love you so much. Hey, so-and-so, go get the camera. I want a picture with my favorite oldest daughter.' I was bamboozled, there is no other way to put it. No sooner had she gotten a camera aimed and her arms around me when the ungodly howling began.

"WAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! YOU'RE WEARING A DUKE SWEATSHIRT AND I'M GOING TO GET PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF! I'M GOING TO FRAME IT AND PUT IT ON THE WALLS OF OUR HOUSE!!! YOU WILL NEVER LIVE THIS DOOOOWWWWWNNN!!!"



I struggled and protested to no avail.



BLOG, I AM A CAROLINA GIRL. THIS COULD END ME.

I'd like to take this opportunity to also denounce my father, who did nothing to stop it, as well as my little sister's dog Theo (look in the bottom corner) who, rather than springing to my defense like a fanged avenger, quietly snuck away.



I've heard of some dastardly parental acts in my day, and while it's true that my mother never sank so low as to force me to watch The Watcher In The Woods, nonetheless, she clearly has no love in her heart.

In Which Our Heroine Gets To Know Kate

Hello my dear blog, I am sorry for having abandoned you for MORE THAN ONE WEEK. Gasp. How on earth did that happen? I feel like I ought to be ashamed, but honestly, I kind of don't. It was a crazy week with many wild things going on of an unbloggable nature, and they demanded my full attention. But here I am, nestled safely back in the bosom of my internet, and have I got some pictures and stories to share with you. First of all, you're never going to guess who I went to visit last week. No, don't read the headline, just guess. Give up? Okay, I'll tell you.

KATE!!



Can you believe it? This utterly lovely and charming blogger is a REAL LIVE PERSON! AND SO AM I! AND WE MET!! Doesn't it just blow your mind? Kate makes the third blogger I've met so far, and I have to say that as a group, I believe bloggers are generally pretty great. Matter of Fact Mommy (blog now six feet under, sadly) was hilarious and fun, Frank was clever and charming and handy, and Kate, well. Kate was nothing short of supercalafragalisticexpialidocious. Kate was up in Dallas visiting her parents WHO ARE AWESOME, BY THE WAY, and since I live in Austin and love road trips, and since I had an afternoon off, I popped Birdie in the car and off we hauled ourselves up to The Big D. I had a blast. I got to meet Isaac, the infant I've been in love with for the past year (pictured below with his doting grandmother, and who, as photographic evidence proved, looks EXACTLY like his mother in her baby pictures). His little blond curls are everything I had hoped they'd be, his smile would light up Times Square, and he does the cutest little speed-walkey thing I've ever seen. Sigh. (Repeat to self: do not reproduce yet, do not reproduce yet, do not reproduce yet...)



Kate's mother is a fire cracker, and we had a great time drinking wine, trading stories, and generally having fun. OH. And lest I forget, she gave me a GIFT BASKET for coming up to visit! Unreal, right? I love Kate's family. Except her Dad, who while I fully acknowledge that he is funny, handsome, smart, and a genial conversationalist, he shamelessly indulged in a torrid love affair with my dog right in front of my face, and for that I might never forgive him. Poor Birdie, she fell like a ton of bricks for this good looking fella, and has been heartsick for him ever since.



Ok, so clearly I'm kidding about the never forgiving him part; I really liked him tremendously, and it was completely cute how she followed him around and jumped up to cuddle in his lap. Who would've thought - my little Birdie having a thing for tall mustachioed gentlemen? I think if he'd jumped off the side of a tall building, Birdie would've gone right after him, howling the doggie version of "Aaaaaaaas yooouuuuu wiiiisssshhhh," as she fell.

And speaking of handsome gentlemen, though not yet tall and mustachioed, check out the awesome and amazing Aiden. I don't even know where to start in describing how much I liked this guy. First of all, wow is he well-mannered. When Kate introduced me he was playing a VIDEOGAME, which he promptly put down, stood up, smiled his charming smile, and told me how nice it was to meet me. Gawp. I heart this young man. OH! I almost forgot. Not only well mannered. Also sports a mohawk. HOW MUCH FREAKIN' COOLER CAN A LITTLE DUDE GET.



Of course, it being a hot day in the Texas summer, and there being a swimming pool in the back yard, we pretty quickly jumped into swimsuits and spend the rest of the afternoon splashing around.



Sorry I have no more pictures for you, but honestly when Kate gives you her OH NO YOU DON'T look:



Well. A girl's gotta know when to put away the camera and just have fun, so that's what we did. We went for a walk, plopped ourselves down in the swimming pool, and voilá! Just as Kate and I became internet buddies quickly and easily, so we fell into real live friendship, and it was no time at all before we were sitting in the pool like old girlfriends, talking about all the things girls sit around and talk about. You know, mid-term congressional elections, FDIC-insured bonds, the relative merits of 1991 Ferrari Testarossa versus the 1996 re-modeling... Oh, wait. No, that's wrong. I meant menstrual cycles, childbirth, and relationships. Yes, that was it. (Ba-domp-chaaaaa! Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.)

All jokes aside, Kate really is a rock star. She's funny, smart, self-deprecating, wise, and easy to be around; visiting her and her family was one of the highlights of my summer. Oh, and for those of you who read her blog and are wondering if it is even remotely possible that her husband Andy is even half as wonderful as she claims... Yes. Yes it is true. But don't let her fool you with her modesty: Andy got just as lucky as Kate did the day she clapped eyes on him, marched home, and told her mama she'd met the man she was going to marry. Kate, thanks for a wonderful visit. Here's to many more years of internet stalking each other!

UPDATE A FEW HOURS LATER: oh my lord, I forgot completely to tell you about the presents Kate made me. That's right, I said "made me". She's such a crafty wonder. She made me a new makeup bag (HOW DID SHE KNOW I NEEDED ONE?) in the funnest prints you could possibly imagine WITH MY NAME EMBROIDERED ON THE HANDLE. And a change purse with my initials! Kate, you're a miracle. Thank you thank you thank you!!!

It Must Be All Those Acidophil-asanas

Do any of you remember my charming Granddad and his Julie? He's hilarious, for those who are too lazy to click the link, and I love him dearly. Our phone conversations are frequent and far-ranging in topic, though they occasionally veer off into the realm of the ridiculous. Like take today, for example.


Cheasty: Hey Grandad, how are you?

Granddad: Well hey yourself! How's it going? What's new?

Cheasty: Oh I'm fine. Not too much going on, I'm just heading to join a friend for yoga.

Granddad: Oh, yeah? That's great. Yoga's good stuff.

Cheasty: Tell me about it. In the year since I started yoga I've grown half an inch!

Granddad: No kidding! Wow! That's amazing. I wonder why it isn't working that way for my Julie. She's shrinking.

Cheasty: Julie does yoga?

Granddad: Yeah, every day. She loves the stuff!

Cheasty: Wow, I had no idea they had yoga in [small little West Virginia town].

Granddad: Are you kidding? This town isn't that podunk. Now, some of the fancier wines and cheeses I've got to find elsewhere, but we definitely have yoga. Why, Julie's having a yoga in the kitchen right now!

Cheasty: (laughing helplessly)

Granddad: Hey, so why is it you think all this yoga is making you taller?



** For the record, Granddad does know the difference between yoga and yogurt, he just misheard me. And also to set the record straight, it's not cause his hearing's going, it's because "all you young people mutter all the time." He's undoubtedly correct.

A Second Home in Antarctica

I don't know how much more of this I can take. Yesterday's temperature was 105 degrees, with humidity that ranged between 35 and 70%. I'm not sure that there's even a word for what that makes the heat index, other than "broiler." Ugh. I took my dog Birdie for a walk at 3pm and she made it about 100 feet out the door before she started panting, 150 feet out the door before she stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me with pathetic eyes, and 151 feet before she made an executive decision and beelined it for a nearby tree to lie down in the shade.

This is ridiculous. I'm moving to a place with permafrost and a perpetual snow cover.

National Day of Hero Worship

Most people, when asked who their heros are, will name someone like their Mom or their Dad, or their Great-Aunt Judy who rode her bike from Austin to Little Rock 45 times in one year just cause somebody told her she couldn't do it. I, also, am a big fan of my parental units (HUGE FAN!), I admire them tremendously, and they are indeed my personal heroes. But when I was a kid, I often looked elsewhere for inspiration, for role-modeling, and for guidance. You want to know who my heros were?

1. Davy Crockett. I dreamed of being a wilderness explorer, and plus his picture on the cover of his biography was CUUUUTE! In my games I often pretended I was Davy Crockett, tramping around the vast unexplored American West with a rifle, a Bowie knife, and a coon-skin cap. No doubt the romanticized version of his life I read as a kid left out the less-than-savory aspects of his character, but to me he was the very spirit of adventure.

2. Amelia Earhart. I know, I'm not the only one. But seriously, this woman was amazing. I read her biography, too, and I read a passage that described her running in to a meeting with "windblown hair." I had no idea that was merely a polite way of saying "messy." I thought that if your hair was in the wind enough it would take on some fantastic qualities that were immediately identifiable as "windblown," and furthermore, it must be extravagantly romantic to have windblown hair. God bless my mother, who never asked why when I spent the next six months hanging my head out the windows of moving cars.

3. Claire Huxtable and Julia Sugarbaker. You know them, right? The mother on the Cosby Show, and the main character on Designing Women? God bless women who know how awesome they are, and aren't afraid to tell it like it is. While I can occasionally approximate eloquence in the written word, when it comes to spontaneously expressing my thoughts verbally I am at a complete and total loss. If one day somebody thinks even in passing that I am one-tenth as cool as either of these fictional characters, I will faint dead away with glee.





The following link will take you to the greatest Julia Sugarbaker moment of all-time, though embedding has been disabled (bummer):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVl4bmGcn3c

So what about you all? Who were your heroes (non-familial) when you were growing up? Who did you intentionally model yourself after? Why? Tell me all about it, or write a post on your blog and then let me know to go read it!

FAME!! I'm Gonna Live Forever!!

Oh, just guess what I got in the mail this morning. A package with 4 copies of an academic journal, The U.S. Catholic Historian!! I know, not normally the sort of thing that sends me into trills of upper-octave exuberance, but LOOK!!



Left column, third one down. Open to page 45.



I'm published! IN PRINT! I've had other stuff published on-line before, but this feels unbelievably cool.

Bad News

Little Lucky didn't make it. He died last night.

In Which Our Heroine Seduces Frank Irwin

Dear Matter of Fact Mommy and other lovers of Frank Irwin. I'm sorry. I know you all love him. I know you all dream of the day in which he will be yours. I am sensitive to those feelings, and I truly regret having to break your collective heart, but what's done is done, and I have to let you know. Frank Irwin is mine. He's the yin to my yang, the bi to my cycle. My apologies, but it was written in the stars.

Frank and I both live in Austin, I discovered recently, and being that I'd already broken the seal by meeting MOFM back in April, it seemed like a good idea to meet this dapper fellow, especially given that he likes bikes. Cause I likes bikes, too! So when he floated the idea of meeting up sometime, I said "Okay, Frank Irwin. Meet me at Quack's Bakery at 3pm on Friday. I'll be the unbearably attractive brunette in the corner. You'll recognize me by my acres and acres of bouncy beautiful hair, and also the fact that the air around me seems to be sparkling, though you can't exactly figure out why." But how was I to know which of the many good looking men who come through Quack's would be Frank Irwin? I wrote to him with instructions. "Will you please bring a book of poetry and a pink carnation so I can recognize you when you come in?" In all honesty, I was joking, but guess what Frank showed up with this afternoon:



What, can't you see the title of that charming little book? Here's a closer look:



Yes, that would be a book of dirty limericks, and it's a good thing he brought it with him, because before Frank Irwin showed up I was sitting there wondering which guy would be Frank Irwin. What on earth would Frank Irwin look like? I started to get nervous when a deeply creepy gentleman in a muu-muu and ladies' slacks came in and started looking about him as if he were looking for somebody. Oh, no! I thought. That must be Frank Irwin and he's so creepy! Keep your head down, Cheasty, maybe he won't see you! After a few moments of dead panic, I was relieved to see Deeply Creepy moving on out. Oh, sigh of relief. Frank, it turns out, is not deeply creepy. Rather, he is very nice, beardedly handsome, and charming, though his taste in poetry is decidedly low-brow. Here's a sample:

There was a young vampire named Mabel,
Whose periods were long and unstable.
On the night of the full moon
With a rusty old spoon,
She would drink herself under the table.

Or how about this?

There once was a woman named Alice
Who used a dynamite stick as a phallus;
They found her vagina
Up in North Carolina
And the rest of poor Alice in Dallas.

This is one of my favorites:

There once was a dentist named Stone
Who saw all his patients alone.
In a fit of depravity
He filled the wrong cavity,
And my! How his practice has grown!


I laughed my ass off when I sat down to read them just now, and these limericks, plus the fact that Frank Irwin bought me a chocolate cupcake, have cemented my deep and abiding love for Frank Irwin. Ah, that Frank Irwin. He sure does know how to win a girl's heart. :)

Scary Movies

I'll just say it right out front: I am a complete and total clucking molting chicken when it comes to scary movies. So much so that I've rarely watched any all the way through. I saw The Sixth Sense and may or may not have almost peed myself and flipped the couch over when I tried to climb over the back because I got so scared. And The Sixth Sense wasn't even the scariest movie I've ever seen. No, that honor belongs to a movie called (da da daaaaa) The Watcher In the Woods.

When my sister Umulu and I were little kids (maybe 8 and 6, or 9 and 7 years old, something like that) we got invited to our next door neighbor's overnight slumber party birthday party. Oooh, thrills! It was an evening of high excitement - pizza! cake! ice cream! games! pop corn! MOVIES!! That night as we 15 little girls snuggled down in our sleeping bags, our friend's mom put on The Watcher in the Woods, and Umulu and I have borne the scars ever since. We completely wigged out. A watcher in the woods? Oh my God, WE HAVE WOOOOOOOODS!! Eventually our friend's mother called our mother to come and get us, cause we were evidently raising quite a ruckus in our panic, crying and shrieking.

For years, The Watcher in the Woods has been the high-water mark for both of us in sheer terror. In high school Umulu, in a bold show of bravado, managed to sit through a movie called The Children of the Corn, which I had heard on good authority was the scariest movie ever made. Afterward, she was telling me all about its horrors in somewhat gory detail, and I asked her. "Was it as scary as The Watcher in the Woods?" She paused and considered. "No, not even close," she assured me.

We also used Watcher as a litmus test for bad parenting. So-and-so has a horrible mom, we would hear. She beats her kids! Or what's-his-face leaves his kids home alone with piles of cocaine on the kitchen table. Yeah, we'd scoff. But answer me this: do they make their kids watch The Watcher in the Woods? Cause that's baaaaaaad.

Well guess what Umulu and I did this week. [Oh, God, I can't even say it. It's too, too horrible and scary for words!! Pull yourself together Cheasty - this attitude is completely unbecoming an adult. Oh, sniffle, hiccup, sob. Ok. I can do this.] We, um.... we, [gulp]... we rented... The Watcher in the Woods. Aaiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

To be fair, we'd googled it previously. Turns out, it's a Disney movie. And only rated PG! Ha, we'd marveled. Who knew?! I bet it's not really that scary, huh huh. So I Neflixed it, and this Monday Ums brought over a pizza and we popped it in the DVD player and cued it up. "Should I press play?" I asked. "Um, well..." Umulu replied. "Yeah," I said, and started to laugh. "I'm completely terrified to watch this." "Me too!" cried Umulu, and we gave in to a good fit of nervous giggles. Finally we agreed that if it got scary, we'd just turn it off. No use scaring ourselves silly, right?

You want to know how long we lasted? Eight minutes and 14 seconds.

Meet Lucky

Hey, blog, I'd like you meet a little dog named Lucky. Technically, I have to admit that Lucky isn't actually his name yet, but I'm pushing hard and I feel strongly that Captain Mommypants will eventually cave in - er, I meant to say agree. Yes, agree. So Lucky it is, until further notice. Why Lucky?



Mom has two dogs, you see, both standard poodles. Zoe and Obie. Obie (the black and white one) is a boy, Zoe (the black one) is a girl. And as you know, birds will be birds and bees will be bees. One thing lead to another and before we knew it, Zoe was having puppies. Oh, the excitement! We were all so thrilled, because Zoe is the nicest dog alive, so cuddly and loving. She's got a favorite toy - an egg-sized stuffed animal of a black-and-white dog - that she carries around in her mouth everywhere, always being so gentle with it, keeping an eye on it. And Obie is as sweet and handsome as ever a dog was sweet and handsome, gallant and strong and full of energy. I don't have any good pictures of either of them, but here's one I snapped recently. Coincidentally, I took this picture on the same day I looked at Zoe and said to my parents, "Hey, I think Zoe is pregnant!"



This past weekend she went into labor, and the family was all a'twitter. But Sunday morning I called home for a status update, and found out that Mom had just rushed Zoe into the vet hospital because the first puppy was stillborn, she wasn't pushing, and her amniotic fluid was coming out a disturbing blackish color. A surgeon did an emergency C-section, but they were only able to save one of the five puppies, the runt. He weighs 6 oz., and survived only because of the dedicated surgical staff who gave him oxygen, rubbed his little body, and gave him sugar-water to get him going. We've got him at home now. Captain Mommypants is feeding him from a bottle every hour or two, keeping him warm, and snuggling him up because Zoe is so exhausted and in so much pain that she sniffed Lucky when Mom held her out to him, licked him once in a half-hearted way, and turned her head away.



My heart breaks for Zoe, and for the four little puppies that didn't make it, but oh, thank the Lord this little guy made it. Good luck, Lucky. I'm rooting for you.

The Great Tornado Watch, 2009

I have now surpassed any and all of my prior claims to absolute idiocy. Deleting all my research notes on my computer? Yup, that's dumb. Eating moldy food because I'm too cheap to turn on the lights and too lazy to check why the tabouleh tastes so weird? Yes, that's asinine. Running downstairs naked to fend off an intruder with a filing cabinet as my only weapon? Perhaps not my brightest plan. All in all, I think I have what any random observer would agree is a well-established track record of doing embarrassingly dumb things, so it is with a healthy dose of a mixed cocktail of emotions that I am about to tell you the following story.

Picture it: it's a Friday night, and because both my sister Umulu and I are unutterably gorgeous and extremely popular with boys, we're spending the evening making dinner and watching a documentary at Umulu's house. The previous evening, an enormous storm with two-inch hail and four tornados had passed through town, so among the many charming topics of conversation was a jolly recounting of many childhood traumas involving hurricanes and tornados in North Carolina. Also, we reminisced fondly about the storm last year that had all our friends apologizing for calling us pansies. Ah, that was fun, and isn't it nice that last night's storm didn't do anywhere near that level of damage? Oh, yes, chortle, chortle, let's watch the movie now.

So there we are, totally engaged in the movie, when all the sudden we hear some freaking loud thunder. Umulu pauses the movie. "What was that?" she asks. "Um, thunder?" I answer. But I answer with less than total confidence because while it certainly does sound like thunder, it's REALLY LOUD THUNDER, and what's more, it appears to quickly be drawing closer to our house. Louder and louder, closer and closer, and then Umulu's face goes pale. "Oh, shit, Cheasty, that's not thunder. That's a tornado."

And BOOM! Just like that, our old training kicked in. Out of the room with all the windows, grab some pillows and blankets as we run, slam shut all bedroom and bathroom doors, and the next thing I know we're kneeling in tornado-drill position, arms over our heads, facing the corner of the interior hallway to her house, holding hands and trying quietly not to panic as the sound gets even louder.

Then the sound gets marginally quieter. And then even quieter. And soon we can still hear it rumbling in the distance, but the danger seemed to have passed. "I'm going to go look outside and see what's happening out there," I whisper to Umulu, and, squeezing her hand, I crawl off through the darkened house for the front door. Which I open onto a perfectly normal street scene. A car drives by. A girl walks down the street with her dog. A band is practicing a screaming guitar solo a few houses down. True, the sky is weirdly leaden looking, but there's not so much as a leaf on the ground, nor is there the slightest hint of a breeze. Umulu creeps out behind me. "Umulu, there's not even any wind," I say, and we stare at the world outside the door in total mystification for a few moments longer. Then a lightbulb goes on over Umulu's head and she slaps her hand to her forehead.

"Oh, God, Cheasty," she laughs. "The Texas Biker Rally is this weekend."

Yes, folks, it's true. What we thought was a tornado was really just a whole hell of a lot of motorcycles making their way downtown. Sigh.

These Are The Things That Keep Me Awake At Night

So here's my impression of me last night at 4:21am. "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. (snore, sniffle, roll over) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Now here's my impression of me last night at 4:22am. "Oh my god I just heard dishes clank downstairs. Oh, my god, is there somebody in my house? Oh my god, I did I forget to lock the door last night? Oh my god, why did I get a deaf dog, you stupid useless mutt WOULD YOU PLEASE WAKE UP AND GROWL IF THERE IS SOMEBODY ACTUALLY IN MY HOUSE." All of this was in my head of course, because even at 4:22am I am not stupid enough to make noise when I am awakened by the sound of a potential intruder knocking over one of my cups into the sink. I made an effort to calm myself down and evaluate the situation.

Option A: there is nobody in the house, it was just one of those gravity things that made the noise. Or maybe a mouse. I could have mice, I suppose. Yes, I'm sure it was just a mouse.

Option B: there is an intruder in the house, it is likely a strung-out crackhead, he is likely armed, will most probably rape me if he knows I'm here, after which I will be lucky if he doesn't shoot me in the face when he's done. I am upstairs, I have no clothes on, nor is there anything I can use as a weapon up here. No baseball bat, golf club. Not even a pocket knife or a flashlight. And my cell phone is downstairs, too. Great. It would be best to be silent, all things considered, and allow the junkie to steal what he wants to steal and get out.

So I laid there for a while. As I laid there I remembered the time I was camping out in Utah and had set my sleeping bag beneath a scrubby pine tree. In the middle of the night I woke up and saw coyotes in our campsite going through our food, and realized that there was some sort of large animal in the tree right above me. I laid there and debated my options for a while, then decided there was nothing I could do about it, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. The fact that I could do that amazes me when I think about it now, cause there was NO WAY I was going back to sleep last night, though the thought did cross my mind to try.

Then I heard a sound. A sound that sounded like the door opening. Or closing. I have no idea. I might even have just made it up in my head, but whatever it was, it shook me out of my frozen state. "Oh, that is just enough!" I roared in my head. "If I'm going down, I'm gonna go down fighting." I leapt out of bed and turned on the lights. I grabbed a blanket with the vague idea of throwing it over the asshole's head, and then picked up a nearby metal filing cabinet (empty) and ran down the stairs with it up over my head, ready to brain the shit out of whoever was downstairs.

Naturally, there was nobody, though checking behind the shower curtain was about the scariest thing I've ever done. Ugh. And I HAD left the door unlocked, moron that I am. Anyway, I'm going to buy some mace. And maybe a dog that isn't deaf, because little old Birdie slept through the whole thing except the part where I ran down the stairs naked, holding a filing cabinet over my head. Because of course there had to be a witness to that piece of excess idiocy.

You Can Call Me "Buckets."

I went to see that new Disney/Pixar movie "Up!" last night, and if you haven't seen it yet, a) stop what you are doing and go watch it, and b) stop reading if you don't want to know anything about it before you go see it. It was wonderful. Surpassingly lovely, sweet and funny; it made me laugh, and it made me cry. In fact, for quite a while I couldn't stop crying, even though the movie was making an effort to make me laugh after the crying was supposed to be over. I cried buckets.

Hi, my name is Amazing Cheastypants and I cry at movies. While I don't exactly hide this information from people, neither do I go about broadcasting it (current moment excepted) because of exactly what happened last night.

There I am, totally wrapped in the moment when Carl loses Ellie, tears running down my face, throat aching, nose stuffing up, and thoroughly enjoying it. Not that I love crying, it's just that I love seeing a movie that so totally pulls me in that I can actually feel what the characters must be feeling. And then my date leans over and starts laughing and teasing me. "Hey, it's just a movie!" "What's wrong with you?" "Ha ha, I can't take you anywhere," and so on. I gamely laughed along with him, but here's what I think, world.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH CRYING AT MOVIES?! What's so funny and mockable about feelings?

I know that whole women's studies schtick about how we live in a patriarchal world, how men's skills are more valued than women's, etc. And, well, I guess it's true. I mean, why is crying at movies embarrassing? If we valued women's abilities more than men's, we'd all be sitting around bragging about how much we cried when we saw Beaches for the 45th time, not sheepishly admitting it. Our men would proclaim with pride that they choked up with tears of outrage when it looked like Brett Favre was about to sign with the Vikings. Well, I say enough. It's time to claim it. I am a crier. I emote, I empathize, I well up with tears. I cry at movies, and WHAT'S MORE, I love crying at movies. In fact, I challenge the world to a cry-off. Go ahead, let 'er rip, but I doubt you can defeat me. They don't call me "Buckets" for nothin'.

Oom-chica-oom-chica

Wow. Further proof that everybody in the 1980s was snorting cocaine.



So really, I have two questions. One, why God? And two, where can I get a bathing suit like this?

Thoughts on Universal Health Care -UPDATE.

Oh my ever-loving shitballs, enough is enough. Obama, at this point I almost don't care what you do, how you do it, or how many people you need to kill in order to get it done. Just give us some universal health care options before I go out of my freaking mind. This was my day today. And by "today," really I mean "the last three days."

One. In which Amazing Cheastypants, being once more employed by the University of Texas, realizes that she is once again eligible for real-live, honest-to-God health care benefits, including dental (oh joy!) and vision (oh, bliss!).

Two. In which Amazing Cheastypants realizes that nobody knows how this transition is supposed to take place. She calls the office called "Insurance Office" and asks. "Oh, I don't know how to get the insurance going," says a very nice woman who really was trying to be helpful. "But what I can do is refund your money for the [unbelievably shitty] student health care coverage you'd purchased to cover you through the summer." Sweet! At least one part of this job is easy. "So what do I do to make that happen," I ask. "Is there an on-line form?" Oh, heavenly peals of laughter! No, of course not. No. What I had to do was submit two written letters IN PERSON, one from me, and one from my department stating that I was an employee in good standing and therefore eligible for benefits. So I called around, found the appropriate person to get the letter from the department, wrote one myself, and trotted over this morning to get 'er done. Excellent! Now I just have to wait for mysterious bureaucratic wheels to crank, and at some point in the next 6 months I should get a refund, but nobody knows whether it'll be credited to my credit card or issued as a check. And if it's issued as a check, who knows whether it'll be mailed to my home, or my mailbox on campus? Only The Shadow knows...

Three. In which Amazing Cheastypants decided to commit hari kari in a very public fashion, as clearly the fates are conspiring against her. After flailing about uselessly on-line and on the phone, I still didn't know where to go to get my insurance kicked in again, so I resorted to calling my old insurance provider where finally somebody knew that I was supposed to go to HR. No, not the office called "Insurance Office," interestingly enough. HR. Whatever, fine. Why the two aren't just part of the same office, God only knows. And why the left hand knoweth not what the right hand does... well, that's one of the great mysteries of life, I suppose. I am but a speck in a mysterious universe, and so on. So I walk into HR with the printed out forms I had to fill out - because they couldn't just reactivate my old account WHICH THEY STILL HAVE ON FILE. No. I had to do all the paperwork again, and they're starting a NEW file for me, not to be confused with the OLD file on me. But whatever. At this point I'm feeling pretty good. I have penetrated the unpenetrable, discerned the undiscernable. I have the right forms, I am in the right office, I AM THE CHAMPION!!

Four. In which Amazing Cheastypants figures out that she is NOT the champion, and in fact, will never be a champion. "Oh, I'm sorry," says the lady at HR. "Your appointment isn't for four and a half months, therefore you are not eligible for health benefits." Oh, no no no no no. "Wait, I don't understand," I say. "I have a letter right here in my hand from my department saying that I am eligible. In the past when I have been a TA, I have been eligible. TAing is a benefits-eligible position. What am I missing?" "Well, it's the four and a half months thing, you see..." she begins to explain, at which point all I'm hearing is "wa wa wa wa wa wa," like Charlie Brown's teacher. I interrupt. "Please." I say. "I have a TAship now. I will have a TAship in the fall. I will have a TAship in the spring. When I have TAed in the past I've been covered throughout the summer even though I wasn't working at all. Now, why am I not eligible when I AM WORKING IN A BENEFITS-ELIGIBLE POSITION?" I waved the letter from my department around my head rather dramatically, just for good measure. She hemmed and hawed for a bit. "Well, maybe you could have your department code you for eligibility and then we could do it?" GREAT! I ask her for explicit instructions as to how to do that. "Oh, don't worry," she says, "they do stuff like that all the time. They'll know exactly how to do it."

Five. In which, naturally, my department does not know how to do what she wanted them to do. "Code you?" asks my department. "She wants us to code you? What does that mean?"

Six. In which, despite my absolute best efforts to make sure that I have the best insurance options available to me, the best insurance to which I AM ENTITLED as an employee of the University of Texas, I somehow at the end of the day find myself completely uninsured.

Gah.

UPDATE, June 6. Oh crap. June 6th is somebody's birthday and I can't for the life of me remember who. Oh, well, moving right along.

Seven. In which the University wins, and I have to buy back that student insurance. Red tape is not to be messed with.

In Which the Honeymoon Is Over

Um, excuse me, please. Did any of you people out there know that dogs are ungodly expensive creatures to maintain? Well? Did you?

ANSWER MEEEEEEEEE!!!

Oh, dear, hold on, I think I need to put my head between my knees for a moment. I feel faint. (pant, pant, pant.) ONE HUNDRED FORTY FIVE DOLLARS AND NINTEY THREE FREAKIN' CENTS. Oh, my god.

ONEHUNDREDFORTYFIVEDOLLARSANDNINTEYTHREECENTS!!!! Seventeen dollars EACH for some stupid SHAMPOO and, if you can believe it, CREAM RINSE that is supposed to help with the incessant itchies, because not only is my unbearably cute little rescue mutt old, deaf, and toothless, apparently she also has a raging case of allergies. CREAM RINSE?! Seriously?

I just spent more on my new dog's ITCHY SKIN and AVERSION TO NORMAL DOG FOOD than I have on myself in... oh wait. Well, nevermind. There was that recent shopping trip and the very very excessively cute dresses, but still. I'M NOT A DOG.



I was literally on the verge of calling the whole thing quits as we walked to the check out. Fine, you know? Let her scratch. But then she looked at me like, "Sigh. I love you, Mom. Hold me?" and I was toast. I paid, we got in the car, she crawled up in my lap, and promptly fell fast asleep, exhausted by the vet-induced trauma. How can you say no to trust like that? I guess if it gets too expensive I can just stop... um... eating? Yeah, that's it! I'll quit eating. I've been wanting to lose five pounds anyway. Ooh, and then I can get a new dress as my reward! Oh, I like this plan already.

Meet My New Dog

About a month ago I wrote a blog post about my new dog, who at that point was nameless. I contracted with a rescue organization to adopt her when i returned from my east coast travel extravaganza, and last Tuesday her foster dad dropped her off at my Elf Palace. Ladies and gentlemen, I solicited your help in selecting a name for this 8 pound WonderMutt, and your commentary was both enlightening and hilarious. Strong favorites were Pocket and Ethel Merman. In fact, I had decided to name her Ethel Merman before I got her, but once I met her and got to know her a little better, well. Blog, I'd like you to meet my new dog, seated here on my sister Crasey's lap. Her name is Birdie.



She's named for a character in a novel called Raney, by Clyde Edgerton. If you have not read this absolutely delightful little book, I suggest you do so immediately, especially if you've ever spent more than five minutes in the South. Kate, I think you in particular might enjoy it. Crasey and I read this book aloud to each other every few years, just to make each other laugh. If you click the link, it'll take you to a google books site where you can read the first bit of the book to see if you like it. Anyway, when you get to the part where the old man calls his wife (whose name is Birdie), you'll understand why I named my stone deaf little pooch Birdie.

Anyway, she's awesome and I am so glad she's mine, even if I do have to cook her special meals of chicken and rice just to get her to eat. She hates her dog food. Oh my god, did I really just type that? When did I become somebody that would cook special food for their dog? Next thing you know I'll be giving up pedicures to send her off to a doggie day spa. Somebody stop me!

Wedding Madness

OK, I'm back. Wheeeeeeeeeee!!!! Let the games begin. This past weekend was a madhouse of wedding planning, wedding, reunions between long-separated friends, excellent parties, drunken revelries, awful hangovers, fun shopping, and lots of chocolate cake. I could start just about anywhere and still tell stories until I'm blue in the face, so I think tonight I won't start, as I'd like to get some sleep sometime. Instead, I'll just give you a quick summary, show you a few of the pictures I took this weekend and hope they make you smile.

Rosie, my sister Umulu's best friend and an old family friend of the AmazingPants clan, got married on Saturday to a luuuurvely guy, JB. The crowd was small - just the bride's family, the groom's family, our family, and a few friends, but it was wonderful. Captain Mommypants, being a minister and all, performed the ceremony in Umulu's backyard. Yes, she really is that short. And she's still taller than me, dammit. Umulu was the maid of honor, Crasey was the wedding plannner, I was the photographer, and the wedding party was an absolute blast.



Crasey did a magnificent job setting up a lovely reception area on a miniscule budget:





Here's the three AmazingPants sisters. I'd like to point out that even in two and a half inch heels, I'm still shorter than both my sisters, one of whom is in flats. Damn my shrimpy legs!



So it was lovely. People hugged and smiled and wept and danced, and told lovely stories of times gone by. Friends reunited with people we hadn't seen in 15-odd years and marveled at how we'd all grown and changed. The DJ did a fine job, the wine and beer were plentiful, and as the evening wore to a close we all sat around laughing our asses off at nothing anybody could remember the next day. But the greatest thing of all? How many of you remember Fancy Nancy, aka the Cupcake Princess Monster? If you don't remember her, click the link on her name to be introduced to the most excellent little girl in the known universe.



And how many of you remember my little brother Bug? If for some reason you're unaware of how totally cool my little dude is, click the link and prepare to be thoroughly charmed. Also, look at that shirt he's wearing - the guayabera I brought him from Nicaragua! Oooh, he looks so yummy!



Well believe it or not, Fancy Nancy and Bug had never met before this weekend, and there was much speculation about how they would get along. Would they be jealous of each other and compete for attention, would they ignore each other's existence? No. No, they did not. You know what they did? They fell in love. They fell in love and danced all night long.



I know I'm verging on being one of those people who is unreasonably convinced that their child is the smartest, cutest, most adorable blah blah blah, and these aren't even my children, but OH MY GOD THEY WERE SO CUTE. I love this next picture: look at Umulu, Crasey, and Rosie's faces as they cheer on Bug and Fancy Nancy to disco greatness.



Ah, love. Ain't it grand?

Please Excuse My Absence

Hey blog, sorry about the disappearing act. I'm still trying to bust my laptop out of the hospital and am borrowing a friend's now that I'm back in Texas and don't have access to my dad's, my aunt's, or my cousin's computers. Sad to tell you, but I think I won't be posting for a little while, unless just quick little blurbies here or there. The AmazingPants Clan is congregating in Austin. Some are here, some are on their way. There will be a wedding, there will be barbecue, there will be swimming and playing, and singing old Irish folk ballads. I will be back online after Tuesday, when most of them go home. Hasta miercoles, and have fun interneting without me!

Va-va-va-BOOB!

Today, I am sadly disillusioned. Also, vastly amused. A friend of mine is in Iraq right now (non-military) and in my email today I received a photo he took in the grocery store over there. Please click to embiggen, and observe the products he's so attractively modeling.



I always thought that if you had to wear a burka, at least the advantage might be not needing to worry whether your boobs were sufficient unto the task set before them. Apparently I was wrong. Also, I had no idea about garlic's augmentative capacity in the mammary region. This is brilliant news! I shall increase my intake of garlic immediately, and hopefully by Christmas I too shall have breasts the size of soup tureens. Huzzah for garlic!

Thank God I'm A Country Boy. Er, Girl. I Meant to Say Girl.

You want to know what one of my favorite songs was when I was a little girl? Those who know me are likely to guess Cher, or an old show tune, but no! My precious posies, let me introduce you to the joys of "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," by John Denver. I am still awful fond of this ditty, but as a child I loved it deeply. Luuuuuurrrrved it, even. We lived in the suburbs, of course, nowhere near the country, but I dreamed of riding horses and having a garden and chickens and being all farmy. My favorite imagination game when my mom put us to bed too early (a hilarious story for another time) was "You are disappearing into the wilderness for a year and you can take only what you can fit in a [backpack/wheelbarrow/ox cart]." Yes I said ox cart. I'd lie there under the covers and play that game over and over in my head. Now would be the appropriate time to laugh.



Well today's post is just a small nod to those childhood dreams. I finally got my parents to plant a garden, so I spent most of the day today weeding the damn thing. I turned the compost heap, looked at the barn for a while, sat in the meadow and chewed a piece of grass. Then I took the dogs on a long tramp through the woods, over to the pond and the river, up through the forest. And oh my good lord, somehow in my dreams of bucolic nirvana, I just never realized about the snakes. I found FIVE SNAKES in the woods - four black snakes, which are fine. But the sixth one? It was a 3 foot long copperhead (highly poisonous) coiled up and poised to strike in the middle of the path. The dogs, which are largely senseless creatures, wanted to play with it, of course, except the little old guy Theo (Crasey's little prince of her heart, whom she left in the care of our parents when she took of for travels in Southeast Asia). Theo is 13 years old and nearly blind. On top of it all, he's...



Well, look at that face. He rules the AmazingPants family with a jaunty wave of his tail, and Crasey pretty much things the sun rises and sets out of his ass, so we all live in terror that something might happen to him while Crasey's gone. Zoe and Obie, the big dogs, wanted to play with the copperhead (AARRGHGHHHH, WHY SO DUMB!!!) so I called them back to me, brandishing a hoe in one hand. But Theo is not one to sit idly by while some other dog might be getting an ounce of attention. HE IS THE KING IN THESE PARTS, DAMMIT! So when I called the other dogs, Theo, who was trotting about, blithely oblivious to the fanged death awaiting him only 3 feet away, decided he wanted to come and check it out in case treats were to be distributed. Streaking across the forest floor, he just leaped over the copperhead as if it were any other branch on the ground, and my heart stopped. I watched him expose his soft little underbelly to the poisoned fangs of a killer snake, and began rehearsing a conversation in my head that started something like this: "So, Crasey... remember Theo?" Oh, shudders. Luckily, the snake didn't know where to bite first, and Theo got safely to my side. I snatched him up in my arms and hustled us all out of the woods.

John Denver, why didn't you tell me what it was really like? Why sing to me of cakes on the griddle and your find old fiddle or your grandma's feather bed? What good is a utopian dream if I find out that really, there are killer snakes.

Hitch Up the Covered Wagons

I'm heading back to North Carolina today after an excellent trip to New York City. It's a long trip in the car, but never fear - I have a book on tape. Well, CD, really, but who's counting. It's Lolita, by Nabokov, a selection that made sense at the time but now makes me wish I had an option B. Well I suppose I could always listen to the soundtrack from Oklahoma! four or five times on repeat, which is how I kept myself entertained on the drive up here, but frankly I think it might be criminal to continue inflicting my version of "I'm Just A Girl Who Cain't Say No" on an unsuspecting populace.

So here's the bad news. My little brother Bug has scarlet fever. Scarlet fever? I thought that'd died out back in the 1800s. He should be fine, but I'll be glad to get home to give him a hug anyway. Poor little guy had a fever of 103 degrees and probably felt like, as my sister would say, "inside-out-flaming-asshole."

So wish me safe travels, and for Bug a speedy recovery. Talk to you all soon!

Captain Mommypants Has a Miracle

OK, I know it's pretty standard-issue stuff to claim that your own mother is the best mother in the world, an angel from heaven, and a damn funny woman, but folks, I've got proof. Blog, in case you have never before been introduced to my amazing Captain Mommypants, please take a moment on Mother's Day to salute her, for she is all that is good and golden in this world.

Aha! I hear you skeptical mother-lovers out there. "THE BEST?" you ask. "Well my mother is pretty wonderful, too, so this had better be some pretty good proof." Well hold on to your hats, my precious petunias. It turns out... (looking furtively over both shoulders, then stage whispering) my mother is fireproof.

Yes, that's right. I said fireproof. See this glove?



This glove was on my mother's hand a few weeks ago while she was over at her church helping to renovate the sanctuary on account of it's shudderingly awful green color. And also because the roof had collapsed in the recent rains, but mostly because of the color, a particularly lurid shade of mint green. All things considered, the roof falling in was considered a sign from God that a redecoration was in order, as going to church there was like being on the inside of a toothpaste tube.

She and a bunch of her parishioners were spending the afternoon tearing up the green carpet, painting over the green walls, and removing the green paint from the woodwork and trim around the sanctuary. So there was Captain Mommypants, merrily scrubbing away at the baseboards with a steel wool pad, some heavy chemical stripping agent, and a pair of rather flimsy rubber gloves. Now I wasn't there, so I can't vouch for the story (though the above photo rather speaks for itself, I think) but apparently as she was clearing a patch near the fusebox, the steel wool hit the fusebox, and the heat from the friction, the chemicals and whatnot... KABOOM! Her entire hand went up in a giant fireball. Ever cool, calm, and collected, did Captain Mommypants scream and flail about? She did not. Instead, as flames engulfed her arm and climbed towards her head, she hustled her way out of the church ("so the church didn't catch fire!" she explained), and with her ungloved hand, reached over, grabbed the burning glove off her hand and threw it on the ground where somebody else stamped out the flames.

So how badly burned was she?



"Not even a heat rash!" she told me, looking more than a little mystified.



I think I'm not the only one that loves my mother.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies out there, but especially to my very own, very special, very amazing Captain Mommypants.

Good For Small Spaces

Today I got a manicure in New York City from a Romanian woman named Maria who gave me what is quite possibly the most bizarre compliment I've ever received.

"Oh, Cheasty," she said, in a thick Romanian accent. "You have such nice hands, small hands. Such beautiful hands." She paused to turn them slightly, examining them from every angle, and then nodded firmly as if she had just reached a decision of great import.

"Yes," she said. "You should be a gynecologist."