Not That Any of Us Have a Lot of Money, With Gas Being $4 a Gallon

But, if you’ve got a few extra bucks, please consider sending five or ten on to Gilgamesh.

Dogs. 

They’re wonderful, but damn, they’ll scare the shit out of you.  And it’s not like they’ll get a job to pay the vet bills.  Shoot, look at Mabel.  She had enough ambition to run for president, but it turns out she’d rather nap than run the country.

I’m Not Good For Much, But I’m Good for Floating Around a Pool

I spent the afternoon at the Missus (and, yes, I ate the hell out of some guacamole and drank beers and made them all listen to the new North Mississippi All-Stars album) and her dude’s house where there is a pool and since it was hotter than balls outside, even though I didn’t have my swimsuit, I got in.

And, in spite of the fact that SuperMousey and her friend know exactly what to say to make you want to about die (on my birthday, it was “So, don’t you like kids?  Why aren’t you going to have kids?  Do you think you can just have kids whenever?  You’re getting kind of old” and today it was “We can see your bra through your t-shirt and it totally makes your boobs look like ground beef.”), I had a fine time.

Like I said, I’m not good for much, but I’m good for floating around a pool.  In fact, if you were to look at how I’m set up, you’ve almost got to wonder if I wasn’t designed that way on purpose.  I am literally exactly right in the fat department in such a way that I can just sit in the water–butt below me, feet stretched out ahead of me–and float around.

I’m starting to think that my ancestors took to the seas in longships at first not for raiding but to rescue their big-bottomed wives who had taken to the water to escape the summer heat and accidently floated off towards the horizon.

Don’t Eat Meat or I’ll Make this Woman Throw Up!

I’m laughing so hard I about can’t even tell you about this.  In short, PETA put an intern in cellophane IN MEMPHIS.  If you have ever been to Memphis, you can probably already guess.  But check Shannon’s site to see if you guessed right.

My Dresser

Y’all, I have always owned this dresser, from the time I was a little girl until now.  It came from some relative before that.

And when I was cleaning it out yesterday, I found an old coloring book of mine.  Along with my college diploma.  And some Barbie pajamas.

Which I kept.

You know, just in case Barbie comes over to visit and realizes she forgot hers at home.

Or something.

I can even remember when I acquired said Barbie pajamas.  I was in Kindergarten.  I had a Malibu Barbie and a Malibu Christie and there was a church bazaar in which one of the parishoners was selling home-made Barbie clothes.  Mom bought me this nightie and two dresses, both sleeveless ballgowns with slight empire waists with sequins around the waist.  One was satin green and the other was velvet black.

Barbie wore whatever, but that black dress was Christie’s.  Even if she wore other stuff, like her yellow swimsuit, I always put her back in that black velvet gown before I put her away.

It’s funny what you remember your earliest lessons about race being.  I remember being about that age and driving with my Grandma A. by a school in Battle Creek just as it let out and as all those black kids were rushing out to get home, my Grandma said, “Aren’t they beautiful?  Like God’s Hershey Kisses.”

Which, I have to tell you, makes me cringe to repeat it to you here.  But it stuck with me because my parents didn’t really talk about race.  My dad had black minister friends and we played with their kids, but there weren’t any black people in the towns we lived in and the general consensus among the adults and kids in those communities (with exceptions, obviously) was that black people were Not Like Us.  They were ugly and animalistic and dangerous and stupid, but more athletic.  And so on.  You know.  I don’t have to tell you.

I quickly got that how my parents felt about black people was weird and not something you really mentioned.

But when my grandma, who I adored, just openly said, where other white people might hear her, stuff about black people like that they are beautiful, it just blew my mind.

It still does, when I think about it, but for different reasons.  I mean, it’s not radical–in fact, it’s kind of condescending–to call a whole group of people “beautiful.”  So, what I tend to mull over now, when I think about it, is my shock and my delight and my relief.

Because, what it meant for me, as a little girl, was that I knew then that I didn’t have to leave Malibu Christie, with her beautiful black velvet dress, at home if I wanted to bring my Barbies to Grandma’s house.

Which wasn’t the case if I wanted to bring my Barbies other places.

I don’t remember, though, how I came to that conclusion–that there were just some places you couldn’t take Malibu Christie–but even by the time I was five or six, I knew it.

Edited to Add: Hey, I’m not the only one mulling over Christie.  Mine had a yellow bathing suit, though.

The Dog Smells Like a Baby’s Butt

Poor Mrs. Wigglebottom is suffering.  She’s got some annoying skin problem that I had hoped was just fleas–maybe some type immune to Frontline–but every day I look her over and I don’t see any.  Just her and her itchy, patchy, skin.

Today, I covered her in baby powder.

I am at my wit’s end.  I can’t afford to take her to the vet until after the house stuff is settled.  But her unhappiness is my unhappiness.

So, I figured, if baby powder is soothing and she needs soothing, well, on it goes.

I am cautiously optimistic.  She has stopped scratching and her efforts to lick at the itchy parts are thwarted by the powder.

But now everywhere she goes, she’s followed by the scent of baby’s bottom.

At least she tolerates this kind of nonsense well.