Brain Waster

So there I was, at home, alone with almost two hours to kill. Hmmmm...my mind raced frantically as I mentally tallied all the things I could do with the whole house to myself. Crank up the CD player and dance, take an uninterrupted bath, nap (oh, the glorious and coveted nap!) or make spaghetti from scratch? I was manic and decided the best first course of action was to put on some really comfortable clothes. On the way to the laundry room it happened.

At first, the remote control just sort of..well, I thought it winked at me. "pssst. hey you." it whispered. I stopped where I stood and suddenly noticed its sleek lines and alluring buttons as if seeing it for the very first time. My eyes trailed along the couch and up to the mother station-all 52 inches of high definition clarity with two hundred and some channels. The Sony sucked me in completely and it only took about ten minutes to figure out which dots controlled the power, volume and channel direction. Game on! Here's what I watched.

Cher's daughter is really plus sized and on a show about celebrities trying to lose weight. (Kenickie, from Grease, was on as well and had apparently gotten himself into more than a few extra Snickers bars because he was pretty obviously high.)

HGTV made an pathetic effort to redo the bedroom of a grown woman who wanted everything purple, pink and sparkly. Do people have no shame?

I didn't know any of the songs on MTV, MTV Jams or MTV Espanol but I did recognize the dude from Whitesnake on MTV Classic.

Total Recall and Coming To America were the movies I flipped between. Who is the worse actor, Arnold or Eddie? You make the call.

An afternoon well spent as now I know what I'm missing and it isn't much. I'll just stick with my American Idol obsession, thanksverymuch, and stick to DVDs and books otherwise.

Met My Match

Sometimes I'm such a pompous ass that I even manage to offend myself.

I lead a charmed life. Things always work out for me, I usually get what I want and I think I'm the luckiest girl around. Stuff just goes my way-what can I say? For this reason, I think I can do anything.

A classic example would be the "spider pants." One summer I decided to make my own clothing. Never you mind that I could barely sew a button on a shirt or hem a pair of pants, I was going to trot right down to Jackman's fabrics and run up some duds on the Singer. For two weeks I was a tracing, cutting, pinning, fitting, sewing fool and you know what? I made some fine garments including a pair of batik drawstring pants with a design similar to spiders. Several persons not known to or paid by me asked where they could get pants like them.

After attending last weekend's fundraiser for SCOSAG known as Wall Ball, sure but didn't I feel the itching to be an artist? Off I went to the art supplies store for charcoal pencils, a sketchbook and a couple of canvases(canvesi?)and hunkered down to create art. I tried to sketch my McDonald's cup, my feet, the dogs, a hand, a road and a tree.

Terrible! Unrecognizable! Fire starters, all of them. Pick a kid, any kid in the 2nd grade at Blades elementary school and he or she could have done better. I'm not fit to clean Cbabi Bayoc's brushes or Charlie Houska's paint dribbled shoe.

I am humbled AND pissed.

Segue

I know you're wondering, probably at this very moment, what I've been reading. To my right sits the stack of most recent reads and it goes a little something like this:

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
Running and Growing Your Business by Andrew J. Sherman
The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy
Age Erasers for Women by Prevention Magazine Health Books and the Rodale Center
Greek Fire-The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis by Nicholas Gage
Techniques of Healthy Cooking by the Culinary Institute of America
Yoga Mind & Body by the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center

All but the first title (because it's a library book)will be up for grabs at the 52nd City book sale. Go to their site, blog tab at the top, and get the details.

For Making Cheese, Right?

The girls and I usually go to the Soulard Market on Saturday mornings. We go for the unusual pastas, powdered sugar doughnuts made before our very eyes and because I like fresh flowers in the house. And, of course, the people watching can't be beat. My favorites are the county people who clearly have absolutely no idea how the traffic flows between the stalls. You can identify Ballwin women as they tend to clutch their Kate Spade purses tightly to their sides.

We try to scurry past the butcher-on-the-spot as quickly as humanly possible. The cages of cramped chickens, geese and the occasional rabbit are just too intense for our lazy weekend morning. Yesterday, there were two caged goats in the back of stall.

Now, I ask you this... Who, in downtown St. Louis, needs a whole live goat? Do people eat goats? At the crib, where would someone keep a goat? Backyard? Basement? Guest room? And does the purchaser of the goat just buckle it into the back seat of their Ford Taurus to get it home? Doesn't the city require some sort of permit to slaughter a live goat in your home? How is that sanitary?!

Is there a Goat Whisperer? If so, I'd like him to translate this message. "Use your curvy horn to impale the butcher and make a run for it! There will be a black Honda SUV waiting out on Broadway to take you to a safe farm in Millstadt. The driver will have a disguise that you must wear during the getaway. If you can, grab some mini-doughnuts on the way out. Now go!"