I’m Getting An Animal That Starts With A “C” For Christmas

Breaking news! Sami has agreed to give me an animal that starts with a "C" for Christmas. It’s a Denise Rich 4"x4" Collectible Miniature with wood display easel - and you can help me choose which one:

Should it be Little Jersey Girl, with the bright sunlight behind her contrasting with the the cool purple shadows? Jersey, Isle of Jersey, New Jersey, Jersey cow, Jersey girl – it’s an undeniable connection. Also, If I was ever to find myself out in the sun, I’d definitely do my best to keep it behind me and not burning right on my delicate face.

Or perhaps Spring Green and White? Which is a better image altogether – the appealing Holstein and,of course, it’s got my signature color in it – green. And the best kind of green – the hopeful spring green. I am widely known for my love of green. Yes, I am. No symbolic connection to this piece, except for the green. But is that enough?

What to do? (Don’t say "get them both" because that is exactly what I want to do and it won’t help me to encourage that sort of thing.)

-Two Truths and a Prediction

Truth: If I had my life to live over again, I would have stuck to my guns and only purchased Scandinavian furniture. Damn you, Queen Anne, with your highly polished surfaces and fussy fussy accessories. And don’t think I’ve overlooked you, you little maple telephone stand from the 40s. You are just as guilty.

Truth: My bachelorette apartment in Manhattan was subsidized and furnished by the hospital I worked for and it was loaded with sleek teak pieces that were mine as I long as I stayed there. I found them embarrasingly spare  at the time but wouldn’t I love to have some now.

  Prediction: As soon as we’re all over Mid Century Modern, the next big thing is going to be Danish/Swedish/Scandinavian modern again. Not the Ikea stuff – the real thing from 40 years ago so start stocking up.

Dogg Comes Alive

On the one hand, I’ve got not much good to say about home schooling. On the other hand, I realize that I’ve done all that I could to educate my own children in areas where I felt that the public school system and contemporary culture in general had failed them.

For instance, Peter Frampton’s use of his tube talker guitar. I tried to explain it to the kids when they were growing up but at the there were no You Tube concerts or Geico commercials like there are now to help me. Back then we had to walk through two feet of snow to hear a talking guitar – both ways! Kids today – they don’t appreciate!

And now, no less a personage than Snoop Dogg pays tribute to the R&B/ funkadelic 70s with not only the talk box, but with visual references to Prince and Rick James. Does anyone else think that flute in the beginning is supposed to evoke Marvin Gaye? As much as I go for the Dogg, I can’t look at the tubing that connects to the talk box without thinking about an ICU suction machine.

But, hey – that’s just me. You should all enjoy the video.

Also, mark your calendars for December 9th – that’s the day Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood premiers on E!  

So much to love about the promo alone – chicken and waffles, Snoop walking ridiculous little dogs, the white suburbanization of gang signs. December 9th – I’ve got my calendar cleared for it.

Recommended Guidelines For A Happy Interaction With Your Scale

How to insure a good reading on your scale:

- Weigh yourself only in the morning after you have gone to the bathroom.
- Weigh yourself completely naked.
- Never weigh your self with wet hair.
- Never surprise the scale by jumping onto it. This will cause a
falsely high reading. You should gently place one foot on the scale
platform and slowly transfer your weight while sneaking your other foot
onto the platform.
- Exhale.
- Never weigh yourself after running up the stairs, exercising or
otherwise inducing a pounding heartbeat. Vigorus heart action I’m quite
sure is refected in the amount of pressure on the scale.
- If you should somehow dehydrate yourself thru exercise, prolonged
exposure to the sun or an attempt at alcoholism, ignore Rule #1 and
weigh yourself to see what your body "really" weighs without all that
pesky circulating volume bogging you down.
- Flip the switch on the bottom of the scale to have your scale read out in kilograms.

How to account for a less than ideal reading on the scale:
- Subtract all items of food and drink that you have recently consumed.
(1 10-oz. mug of coffee is 1/2 pound (the same volume of carbonated
beverage is 3/4 pound because of the pressure exerted by all that fizz
) / a modest lunch is 2 pounds / a full supper is three pounds and if
you have had a big tumbler if iced tea with it, then you are free to
speculate to your heart’s content.
- Predict what you would have weighed if only you didn’t eat the dessert that someone forced on you.
- Say the magic word: bloat (applies to women only).
- Reposition yourself closer to the middle, front or sides of the scale platform to see if that gives you a differnt reading.
- Review your 24 hour food intake to scrutinize for high-sodium foods that have resulted in temporary water retention.
- Blame a stuck pattern of weight loss on all that damn exercise which
has surely resulted in increased muscle mass. So even if you are losing
fat weight, the scale will read higher because you are so muscular now
that your smaller body is bearing down on the scale.
- Determine which phase of the moon we are in to attempt making a case for fluctutating gravitational pull.

How to avoid getting your hopes up:
- If you should get a very good reading, don’t assume it is true. Try not to expect too much.
- Don’t extrapolate your weight loss during the first days of your diet
to the rest of your life. Example: just because you have lost three
pounds overnight (you weighed yourself at night, didn’t you?) doesn’t
mean that you will have lost 31 pounds by the end of the month or that
by Christmas, you will be 269 pounds lighter.
- Remind yourself that even Oprah had to take a couple of stabs at it
until she got it right. And she has servants and stuff to shop and cook
for her and she doesn’t have to go into the kitchen and find someone
else’s subversive PopTarts looking her right in the eye.

The Internet Is Full of Shit

Found on Flickr under the title:

The Colonel: World’s Biggest Cow with Normal Sized Cow Underneath for Scale

Never mind that the little one is a goat. The big one is a bull.

Pee-pul. Doncha just hate ‘em?