I know I brag every time I go shopping, but tonight I got four bags of groceries, including:

4 lbs shredded cheddar cheese
2 lbs plain yogurt
1.5 lbs cottage cheese
1/2 gallon milk
3 tubs Sabra Hummus (dollar each SCORE)
2.5 lbs black grapes
2 lbs bananas
4 lbs tangerines
4 lbs hot turkey sausages
bottle Australian Riesling
Two tubs Homestyle Two Bite Brownies (.89 cents a tub SCORE)
Two tubs Homestyle pumpkin walnut scones
Two tubs Kozy Shack Rice Pudding ($1.69/tub SCORE)
2 lb jar of Peter Pan peanut butter (my weakness)
Organic calming tea

...and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

Total damage $40.29

Thank God for Fresh to Frozen. They take good care of us.

Suley and I were eating pizza while Tad was at MMA. I had CNN on. Obama came on, of course.

Suley: "You know, I'm voting for Obama."

Me: "Really?"

Suley: "Yeah, I am. For president."

Me: "Do you think he will be a better president than McCain?"

Suley: "Well, McCain is a vampire lord."

Me: "And Obama's not?"

Suley: "No, he's not. McCain is evil."

Me: "I see."

(I change channel to HGTV for about ten minutes, then flip to more news featuring, of course, Obama)

Me: "Look, there's your friend."

Suley (indignantly): "WHAT?"

Me: "Obama."

Suley: "He's not my friend!"

Me: "Well, you said you were voting for him."

Suley (getting worked up): "But yat doesn't mean he's my friend!" (Jumps off couch and waves arms frantically) "I just got sucked into the Obama charisma machine!"

If you're a fan of Ill Doctrine, Jay Smooth's video blog (and you should be), do him a favor and take a few seconds to register at Current.com and click "vote up" here. He could win a thousand bucks and get his video on TV.

He's actually already been on TV, on fabulous Foxnews, but they credited his work to Souljah Boy, which is just not cool. So help him get the credit he deserves.

I just unjoined 30 lj communities.

I also culled dead journals and journals I had friended that didn't friend me back. If I removed you in error, say something.

For the record, I don't usually add folks who add me first unless they speak up, so if you want to be added, you gotta say so. That's just the policy around these parts.

It can make you sleep with politicians, or worse, Jay McInerney. And it can make you wear a lavender brocade top over a white Brady Bunch collar. And change your name to Rielle. And overaccessorize.

There but for the grace of God go all of us!

Lisa Druck, 1988:



Rielle Hunter, 2008:

Stolen from scarlete. karimonica, I miss you.

So the gossip sites were all awhirl yesterday over the bikini pics of Keely Shaye Smith, Pierce Brosnan's wife. The caption on TMZ snarked that she was having "a whale of a time" on Kauai.

I'm not reprinting the bikini pics because they weren't flattering. Who doesn't take a bad picture once in a while? Raise your hand if you think a candid photo of you in a bikini would be your best look. Thought so. But here's a recent pic of Keely Shaye Smith:



Hideous, right? Hurts your eyes, doesn't it?

So another site, Canada's National Post, throws their dunce hat into the ring by commenting on Brosnan's "waddling wifey" and helpfully providing a list of "other Hollywood hotties with surprisingly unattractive partners."

Two of their examples of hotties with unattractive partners: Britney Spears/Adnan Ghalib and Don Cheadle/Bridgid Coulter.

I'm not sure that Adnan has really earned partner status yet, but one thing I am sure of is that he's HOT. Hello HOT. Sleazy, yes. Contagious, maybe. But definitely HOT.



After you ruminate on that, tell me in what universe Bridgid Coulter is unattractive.



Go ahead, tell me. I'll be waiting. I'll be waiting right here.

Aw, man, the neighborhood kids made a video. I want one of those "34th & Moody" shirts!

There's a banner at 4401 West Broad that says "Coming Soon: Phoenician Restaurant."

You don't think it's the actual Phoenicia making a comeback, do you?

Just a note to make sure everybody knows about this, right?

NAIMA’S MEDINA: BELLYDANCE PERFORMANCES

Featuring SOMRA EL NUBIA of St. Louis, MO
Bellydance and Tribal Fusion North and West African

THE CULTURAL ARTS CENTER AT GLEN ALLEN
2880 MOUNTAIN ROAD, GLEN ALLEN VA 23060

7:00 P.M. BELLY DANCE PERFORMANCES $15

*******************************************************************

Naima only does one of these every couple of few years and they are always AWESOME. She rocks and her shows rock! Nadine will be performing! Y'all come!

(x-posted rva)

(x-posted from Curio's Myspace Bulletin)

Hi all,

We've gotten a lot of questions so we thought we'd post it here for all to see. Yesterday at approximately 1:42 PM we lost our prince Meowby. This is a very difficult time for us and we appreciate everyone's support. He was ill for several days and we do take comfort in the fact that at least his suffering is over. He got one last night at home to snuggle on the couch with us and his mommy. He was quite a fighter, as anyone who knew him will know.

Over the course of the past week we have racked up $1000 in bills between the emergency vet and the regular vet....trying to find out what was wrong with our baby and comfort him in his last days. This is a huge amount of money for us, and I had to borrow money from my Equity line on my house to pay the vet bill.

We would never ask anyone for a handout....that's just not our style. We WOULD like to remind everyone, though...that we have a bunch of Curio merchandise left over in our attic that we would love to sell you. Most everything is on our website and if there is anything else you'd be interested in let us know. No reasonable offers will be refused, just contact us and we will work it out.

Again thank you to everyone for your support during this time. It means a lot to us and I'm sure it meant a lot to Meowby too.

--With heavy hearts,
--Drew, Michael and Xine
--Curio

...don't forget that this weekend is Ride for Kids!



I slacked on posting about it this year in all the hoo-rah, but lucky_fool and kitsch_witch are riding as usual, and your contributions are needed, appreciated and, as always, tax deductible!

I just cleaned up my friends list. I think I only deleted dead journals, abandoned journals and journals of people I'm certain don't read mine and don't care if they are on my list, but there were a lot of little boxes and it's feasible that I may have inadvertently clicked a box I didn't mean to -- so if you got deleted by accident, let me know.

And if you were kind of hoping I would delete you and I didn't, you can go ahead and unfriend me and I'll respond in kind no questions asked. :D

Wow, ten minutes and I'm already down a few people....good thing this ain't no popularity contest.....

On the way to pick up Nadine tonight, I heard a really offensive segment on belly dancing classes on NPR. It was classic NPR -- looking down on the whole concept of belly dancing, the Y, the "other mommies" who invited the commentator to the class. Oh, and don't forget they're fat! Ha ha ha! Make sure you eat a lot of kebabs before class, nudge nudge! The smugness dripped from every syllable. When I drive in the early evening and have to choose between NPR and Sean Hannity, I generally consider NPR the lesser of the evils, but on nights like tonight I'm not so sure. "Oh, we are so above it all! Oh, it's not nearly erudite and cultural enough for us! We're public radio, you know!" I wished I had been earlier so Nadine could have hated it with me. But you know me, I'm never early. NPR would probably turn down their lips disapprovingly at my terminal tardiness.

When it was over, I was sad to find out it was a commentary by Sandra Tsing Loh, because I usually really like her stuff in written form. Her writings on living in LA especially. I felt like a friend had let me down.

Why, Sandra?

ETA: Because I really don't want to hate Sandra and don't want you to, either, here's the awesome commencement speech she gave at her alma mater Caltech in 2005. It also mentions belly dancing and contains the best advice I've ever heard in a commencement speech: "Dare to disappoint your fathers."

"And you Asian students? That goes double for you. You know who you are; don't make me come and get you. Don't be shy. Look at me--I went into the liberal arts which, for a Chinese father, is like pole-dancing."

Some of you were here for Tank Day 2004, when I sneakily took Tad to the annual Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles Open House. It's a chickenfoot joke -- a tank museum less than two hours away that is only open once a year. Last time I told him we were going to a flea market. This time I told him he had to help lucky_fool pick up some motorcycle parts for today's ride. Neither time did he suspect anything.

Here, it's a new children's book -- Don't Let the Baby Drive the Halftrack!



( and here's why! )

So I went to a party tonight. It was a hip and happening livejournal party. But before I talk about the party, I have to relate my great celebrity sighting.

I was meeting gwferguson at the coffee shop before the party. knosos was working late, and GW was kind enough to agree to be my escort. Since we were at the coffee shop, of course treats had to be purchased. So we're sitting there with our treats, and this six-year-old kid in a plaid flannel shirt and an Opie Taylor cowlick just walks up big as life and says, "Did you know I was on the cover of Style Weekly?"

Did I ever! Last week's issue of Style weekly featured the Christmas wish lists of the first graders at JB Fisher Elementary, and it was hilarious. I read it twice.

"Well, what do you know," I say, ogling him like he was a rock star. "You were on the cover of Style Weekly! I have it at home! You go to JB Fisher and you were talking about what you wanted for Christmas!"

"Yu-Gi-Oh cards and a Darth Vader costume," he reminds me, puffing his chest out.

"Yes, that's right! And the guy overtop of you wanted a cat and a hundred cupcakes, and they didn't have to be iced, they could be plain."

"That's Clark," he says brusquely, not wanting to let his unworthy classmate infringe on his moment of fame. "Do you want to see how strong I am?"

"Of course," I say, and make sure to ooh and ahhh a lot when he shows me his muscle.

"One day somebody asked me to write my name beside my picture on the cover of Style Weekly."

I smack my forehead. "Man, I wish I'd brought mine with me! I would have asked you for your autograph. I had no idea I was going to meet a famous person at the coffee shop!"

"That was my first autograph," he says thoughtfully.

"But certainly not your last," gwferguson interjects. "You're destined for greatness."

"Jackson!" His mother, previously placing an order at the counter, comes over to find her son basking in the spotlight of our obvious adoration.

"Do you all know Jackson from school?" I guess we just look like teachers, maybe.

"No, we just met him."

She sighs. "Did he just walk up and tell you he was on the cover of Style Weekly?" We nod, grinning like idiots. Jackson continues to preen, unaware that he has done anything untoward.

"I can't wait to tell my husband that I got to meet you," I gush, probably annoying the heck out of his mother. "He's going to be so jealous that he wasn't here."

Jackson's mom shakes her head. I'll bet it's hard living in the shadow of Jackson McDonald.



Tomorrow: The party recap!

No caption necessary.
( Read more... )