I Wish My Birthday Suit Would Shrink in the Dryer

I saw the title of this book and I may have to run out and buy it. A good friend and fellow transcriber, Frog, was laughing with me about getting out there again and dating. But she took care of her birthday suit. She is pretty, 10 years younger than me, and exercises and eats well to stay in shape. Even my daughter, Teddy Bear, says she is hot. When she got on Match.com (where she met her husband), she got lots of winks. I'm afraid to even put a picture up.

Teddy Bear was nagging me though about getting back on Match.com and being serious about dating, but I'm afraid. Frog was teasing that it is hard to get naked again after being married a long time and an even longer time since another man saw you naked. It seems like every man on Match.com exercises 4-5 times a week, loves the outdoors, and is looking for a hiking partner and someone in shape. No curvy girls allowed.

So I guess my birthday suit and I will have to hit the exercise bike and go back on a diet. But I don't hike and going to the gym sounds like torture. Come on, guys, there must be some INDOOR activity you like. Think hard.

This Little Bear Went to Market

Wow. The market closed down 281 points today. I am watching my retirement fund vanish in front of my very eyes. I truly would love to go "John Galt" right now. Atlas Shrugged is here and I wish I knew where Galt's Gulch was. (Click on the graph to see it bigger. Warning: May cause premature gray hair.)

I am sick and tired of the takers. Stop reaching into my pocket because YOUR compassion demands it. Another Boston Tea Party is not even worth it. Who would take over? Another zombie idiotic politician from either party. The Republican Party is Dead. Both parties are only arguing about how fast to eat the corpse of the American taxpayer.

Time to downsize, check out, simplify. If you are productive, if god forbid you are successful and make money, you will be taxed into oblivion and made to feel like shit for succeeding because obviously you succeeded on the backs of the little people. I am a little person, I make a LOT less than $100,000, and I do not want to contribute one more dime than necessary to Arnold, Obama, or whatever politician du jour is in power. Because I pay taxes unlike Obama's cabinet (the compassionate bastards that they are), I am going to see how much I can cut back on earning and spending.

How on earth is this going to end? Markets all over the world are crumbling, not just here.

I am mad as hell right now.

View

I never thought much of living in a house with a view until I moved to the Meadowview area of Temecula in 1996. What's the big deal? I used to feel like Clark Griswold in "Vacation" when he is looking at the Grand Canyon impatiently waiting for his family to ooh and ah and then he wants to go.

We bought at the bottom of the last housing disaster and got a home with a view that I so miss. We bought it for $235,000 and sold it in 2007 . It looked exactly like the homes you see in Williamsburg, the white houses with black shutters. It was 3300 square feet and one of the saddest days of my life was moving out of that home.

The view was combination of meadow and city lights. It was so quiet you could forget you were only a few minutes from the mall and the freeway. There is white rail fencing all over Meadowview (it is horse country) and one section of the fence used to have these tiny burrowing owls. They were so adorable. One would sit on the fence and one would be in the little burrow. There also used to be turkey vultures. I remember the first time I saw one spreading his wings to dry them off after a rain. I almost crashed because he was sitting on the peak of one of the homes that overlooked the meadow. He had his wings completely spread out. It was like the condor exhibit at the zoo, you know where you stand with your arms spread out seeing how your "wing span" compared. They were the ugliest birds but I loved them. For some reason they left and the crows came. Nasty birds. I loved the small gray birds that would fly after them and peck them and harass the heck out of those pesky cawing scavengers.

I hunted for a rental to live in. It was so hard to look at rental homes all jammed together, everybody looking the same. All your backyard fences backed up to other backyard fences. The neighbors next door can look down from their second story balcony right into your yard. Beggars can't be choosers as the saying goes until I found this current house. I live on a corner so I only have one neighbor on one side and they keep to themselves and are nice people, there is no one behind me. Directly across the street are the backs of homes from the next street up, so no neighbors there really. And on the other corner is an elementary school. I love it. The moms drop off and pick up twice a day and are gone usually within 15 minutes. No hanging around, no after school activities.

So this is the view I have now out my back windows. No city lights but it is green and quiet. You can hear the coyotes hunting and we had a bobcat or mountain lion (nobody was sure) at the school across the street one day. Mmmm, that is a story for another post because it was a comedy of errors every way you sliced it.

I am going house hunting in the new few months (assuming I still have work) and I pray that I can find one in my price range with a view. I think we are headed for the bottom of the housing market in the next year here or so (another wave of foreclosures is in front of us) and maybe I can find something special.

Magical Mystery Tour

(Jaced.com Lateral Action blog)

Do you have a muse? Where does creativity come from? Does it "come" from somewhere outside yourself? Have you ever "created" something that seems to move your mind, your hand, your eye that when you are done you wonder where did that come from? I am not an artist. Pencil to paper to draw something has always seemed like magic. My ex-sister-in-law is an artist. She worked in animation at Disney and Don Bluth for years. My reaction to watching her work almost seems primitive. Where does that gift come from? Is there a "genius" inspiring her, taking her over, something you can call upon to help you? Can creativity come from hard work, from practicing some particular craft? Will a "genius" come along when you slog along perfecting a craft.

I remember one day, still living at home with my family, and I was in college. I was playing with water colors that I had purchased for a calligraphy class. (I had to do take something for my fine art requirement.) The professor had asked us to create a poster and "create" a new font. I had seen a beautiful picture of a flower, a large flower overflowing with petals. Because I cannot draw, I did the grid thing. You know, draw a grid over the picture and then copy each little grid to your paper. I remember the feeling of being totally absorbed watching this picture appear on the page. I took out my water colors, sprawled on the floor, and started to "color." Mixing colors, shading, washes. Hours passed and when I was done it was shocking. There was a beautiful flower. Where did it come from? I absolutely loved that feeling of being taken over.

Writers must have a special breed of muse, of creative genius. That magical ability to tell a story, persuade with an essay, create an epic tale. When a writer writes a story that spans many books does the end of the story inspire the beginning? Or is it like a journey to the writer, too? Does the writer start writing and wonder where is this taking me? The Harry Potter stories, Diana Gabaldon "Outlander" series, the Twilight books. When you finish the last book and then go back to re-read them (or am I the only one who has to do that?) and see all the clues and bits that go with the end, it is so much fun to realize what you may have missed the first time round, but does the author create the whole landscape of the book first so that they can plant these clues?

Musicians, composers, singers. Music is a mystery. I can change my mood by the music I listen to. It can bring back memories long buried. It's like music has a special key to the mind, a special way to open you up. If I am madder than hell, I play some loud, very LOUD, thumping music and eventually I calm down and my music choices change, too. (One reason to allow those teenagers of ours to play "their" music loud once in a while.)

Here's to hoping your muse inspires you today.

Fiddley Dee

Do you consider stuffing your lumpy midsection into a girdle as caving into misogyny and against all principles of feminism or is it a great invention? My sister-in-law said she was wearing a girdle the last time I saw her and she wasn't sure that was a good idea because of the muffin top and the incipient camel toe. I did not notice either one although I did not look too carefully for the latter.

Four years ago when my daughter was getting married, a whole herd of us women went dress shopping. Is there anything worse than shopping for a mother-of-the-bride dress? What is it with the long skirts and jackets? I am a sucker for sequins and sparkles but my daughter said no. I had planned on losing weight, but, well, you know how that goes. It was asking a lot to plan a wedding AND lose weight. I figured I might have to resort to a girdle but I was fighting it tooth and nail.

It was my mother and sister and daughters and aunts trying on dresses and girdles. My sister said there was no way she was going without a girdle so I let her be the guinea pig. I hate panty hose, I could not imagine wearing a girdle all day and all night. I figured the compression of all that fat had to be unhealthy in the long run. My sister picked a pretty black corset. We all were trying dresses on or sitting around giving bad advice on what to wear. Don't ever ask me; I have marginal taste at best. We could hear loud breathing and then finally a loud snort.

"Does it fit?" There was way too much laughter going on the dressing room to think this had a good outcome. "Yeah, it fits."

"How does it look?" Long silence.

"Well, if you want to look like a sausage this is the thing. It's pushing all the fat out the top which makes my boobs look weird and what's left is coming out the bottom."

Naive person that I am, I asked wasn't that the point of a girdle, to contain all the fat. She snorted and said the fat has to go SOMEWHERE.

I wore a loose dress on the day of the wedding. I'm no fool.

Happy First Birthday Z~!

My incredible, darling, zany grandson turned ONE today~! You could not have ordered a more beautiful day in Temecula. Bright blue skies, perfect temperature, and lots of family and friends.

I got to see friends of my daughters that I have not seen in a long time. It is hard for me to believe that they are turning 25 this year. They are so young and so fun to be around. I have such memories of the girls dressing for prom, sleep overs, dinners, and parties. It is so hard when you are in the moment to stop and realize how quickly it goes. My brothers, my two incredible sister-in-laws, and my nephews came up from San Diego to help celebrate. Little Z was an angel and only one had one melt down all day. He has LOTS of aunts and uncles and cousins and a cousin to be
in May, so he was easily distracted.

I look at these pictures and I can still see his mom at 1. I think they even had the same amount of hair at this age. I can still see her chubby cheeks, we even called her "Chubby Cheekers." I just want to go back and kiss and hug that little face.

One year! Grandchildren are the best and I can't wait for all my friends to become grandmas and grandpas so we can have a bragging war. Of course, I win by default. So, bring on the Brag Books.

They Want to Tax What?!!

Charles Durning in the "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."

HAHAHA. How hard up for money do you think they are? Creative writing, I mean law writing, is going at on our state legislatures. They are floating ideas that really should be on the Colbert show or Jon Stewart.

The New York Times had an article on Struggling States to Look at Unorthodox Taxes. One of our very own, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano wants to tax pot. You know, the illegal stuff. He says, and I quote, "We're all jonesing for money, and there's this enormous industry out there." I don't know where to begin on the whole pathetic quote. Jonesing? Puhleeze. Does he have a stash somewhere? Rolling papers? Bong and hookah pipe in his top desk drawer? Enormous industry? I wonder how enormous it would be once it is legal? I am for legalizing pot but not because I look at it as a revenue source but because it is insane to put people in jail for smoking pot. Maybe this goes along with the snack tax and the alcohol tax and fast food tax. When you get the munchies, you can now pay double the tax.

Nevada wants to tax brothels "based on the amount of activities." BWAHAHAHA. Oh my god. I want to help write those new tax laws. How much for the missionary position? What if she just lies there like a dead fish? No tax at all? Maybe she owes him money? What if they employ, you know, toys? Lots of "activity" there, man.

Why, oh why, don't they ever stop spending money? Even the new budget from Obama has NEW spending, increased spending. Most people I know would be happy just to have the same amount of money to spend as they had the year before much less get more money.

My grandson turns one today. Perhaps another tea party is in the making when he finds out what we have obligated him to pay to pay off crooks and incompetents.