Laurie Perry's Blog, page 5

Monday morning, she's a cool cat

Clearly Frankie T. Cat also appreciates The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes.

Shis a hip cat, a cool order, a fluffy tail, of course she likes poetry from the 1930s. Her current fave:

ADVICE

Folks, I'm telling you,

birthing is hard

and dying is mean --

so get yourself

a little loving

in between.

Bob agrees.

Mean Girls

You expect mean girls in junior high, high school, and the hallowed halls of freshman rush season. It's like acne or failing driver's ed, a stumbling bump on the road to adulthood. The pleasures of getting up in age are many: you never have to parallel park for a DMV tester again, you don't get prom-night acne, and you outgrow the realm of the mean girl.

So when you meet up with a tiny pack of rabid mean girls in your grown-up life it's a disconcerting shock. People like you and me just assume we misinterpreted the conversation. We make allowances. We give the benefit of the doubt. We don't expect mean girls at our age. We think, "Oh, she must just be going through a situation."

Then one night you bolt awake at 2 a.m. and realize there is no benefit of the doubt. There is no situation warranting this behavior. Those bitches are just mean girls!

You don't intend to get sucked in but you do. They get to you with their gossip and their sneaky little "let's bond over a shared hatred of so-and-so" and the fact that they run in packs. They must run in packs, because they can't take you down on their own. They're like ants that way. One ant is annoying but a pack of ants is jihad situation requiring spray, bait and chalk.

And just like ants, you can get rid of mean girls. It takes patience and the willingness to cover up all your sweet stuff. But you can get rid of them.

I have spent enough time on earth to understand karma and its delicate churn. Recently I made a mistake. I have not been myself these past few weeks, I've been trying my hardest to be nice to a tiny pack of mean girls who I did not want to realize were mean little girls. It does not work. You can't ever befriend a mean girl, they just talk shit about you behind your back and they still hate their lives and complain about every.damn.thing.

I like my life. I don't want to talk about people behind their backs. If I have something mean to say I want it to be pure Southern, "Bless her heart, could you pass the ham?" and be done. I do not care about gossip, unless you are Kanye or a Kardashian. I do not want to trash the boss, bitch about so-and-so's clothes, or ice out the new girl and pretend we're all going home while really we're going for drinks. That is 9th grade behavior. I am grown. I do not want to relive 9th grade.

This is my statement to the universe: I will not mean girl you. I may fail at many things in life, I may mess up, be accidentally rude, get flustered or mistakenly cut you off in traffic especially if you are on the 101 and don't merge in a timely fashion. But I will not be a mean girl. And from now on when the little pack of mean bitches tries to get me to gossip with them I will take an important phone call or have a delicate underwire emergency or hear someone calling my name elsewhere or excuse myself to go cure cancer.

No more meangirling. Bless their hearts.

Dig and be dug in return

Now listen, I am not what you would call a poetry lover. In my world only two kinds of poetry exist -- remarkable poetry, which is so rare it's almost extinct, and the other crap. The other crap is all horrible poetry that makes me physically endanger myself with the dramatic amount of eye-rolling which accompanies each and every line.

So it's not often I get wrapped up in a poet, but it happens. It's happening now, and my current obsession is Langston Hughes. I woke up one morning about a week ago reciting the lines to my favorite Hughes poem, Motto, and since then I have been on a Langston Hughes binge, re-reading his work and all the biographical pieces I can get my hands on. He was a fascinating guy with some crazyass politics. I can appreciate that. You have to be a little insane to be able to zip words together so beautifully.

I wonder what ol' Langston would make of all the May Day protests and traffic snarls and malodorous anarchists who line the sidewalks downtown every May 1st?

He'd play it cool, that's my bet.

Motto

I play it cool

I dig all jive

That's the reason

I stay alive

My motto

As I live and learn

Is dig and be dug in return

The best place to start your own Langston obsession is with The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Once you dig in, I also highly recommend The Ways of White Folks: Stories. You can also pick up The Big Sea: An Autobiography (American Century Series), a fascinating look into his life and a must-read for writers.

Imagine the blog this guy would have had.

Good Stuff for Spring 2012 (plus one product I'm mad at)

I love sharing products that I use and enjoy, the creature comforts that make life happier or shinier. Here is my list for Spring 2012:

• Birchbox

Birchbox was my Christmas surprise from Jennifer and I have since become a total Birchbox addict. Sign up for the boxes and every month you get a cute little package of goodies and samples delivered to your doorstep. Through Birchbox I've discovered all kinds of unique and beautiful products, plus the randomness of the samples introduces you to items you may never have run across otherwise. Once you get your box, give feedback on the products to earn points in the store. This whole business is such a good idea, I wish I'd invented it myself!

• Draw Something App (Free, or paid version is 99 cents)

Another addictive thing that Jen got me hooked on. I love this app, it's a combination of pictionary and words with friends and is an excellent way to goof off.

• Guayakí Yerba Mate Chocolatte Tea Bags

Yerba Mate was recommended to me as a magic tea that would improve energy and help you lose weight and get purified and keep you young. I am not sure this magical elixir lived up to the hype but hey, that is a lot to ask from a tea bag. I like that Yerba Mate has just enough caffeine to perk me up midday but not enough to keep me awake all night like coffee. The only problem is that it tastes like muddy grass. The Mate Chocolatte version tastes SO GOOD. Way better than regular Yerba Mate and still only 4 calories. Magic yet to be determined.

• Caslon camisole (Available at Nordstrom)

I wear these camis all the time, usually under sheer blouses or sweaters. This version is super high quality, holds up well to repeated washings and best of all it comes without the built-in shelf "bra" most camis have. If you're over a B-cup those shelf bras create an ill-fitting mess and offer exactly enough support to be NEVER USEFUL. So this great tank eliminates all that drama. It also has adjustable straps and comes in a wide variety of colors.

• Assets tights, pantyhose and shapers

This is the lower-price version of the Spanx brand and you can find it at Target. I swear by Spanx but have switched to the Assets version (still made by Spanx, just less pricey.) Tight-End Tights under my skirts smooth everything out and provide a completely opaque leg. The Cool Shaper is good under pants or a skirt with bare legs. These products wash and wear well -- place Assets in a lingerie bag and wash on delicate with your other delicate stuff. Hang to dry. I would still hand-wash the sheer pantyhose but it's your call. Live wild.

• Kerastase hair care

Kerastase makes the most amazing shampoo and conditioner, crazy expensive but one of the few beauty buys that is always worth the price. You'll want to dig through the product line to find what works best with your hair, but my favorites are Kerastase Reflection Chroma Reflect Masque, Kerastase Nutritive Bain Satin Shampoo, and the new styling product Elixir Ultime which I discovered through a Birchbox sample and loved.

These next items are all about the manicure...

• Nailtiques Nail Protein

I lost the genetic lottery on great fingernails, mine are soft and bendy and prone to peeling but don't cry for me, Argentina, I won the genetic lottery for boobs so it's a trade off in life. Plus I discovered Nailtiques! This stuff looks and functions like clear nail polish while it makes nails stable and healthy. (With genetically inferior nails no amount of vitamins or nutritional supplements do the trick.) Nailtiques is a topical protein and ... well, I have no idea how it works but I do know it works. Apply one coat of the clear Nailtique each night. You will be shocked how much it improves strength and length. Now I wear it under my polish like a base coat and I swear by it for stronger, prettier nails. One bottle lasts about three months of daily use.

• Zoya nail polish

This beautiful line of polish is my most favorite beauty buy. The colors are lovely and last longer than my other polishes, plus they have a huge selection of very light, feminine colors that work so well with my skin tone. Lately I am all over the pale lavender color, Kendal, and the true nude, Avery. You'll be happy to know Zoya nail polish is toluene, formaldehyde, DBP and camphor free. According to the website it's also vegan friendly (but don't eat it!) and Zoya doesn't test on animals.

• Sally Hansen Mega Shine Top Coat

If I had only one motto in life, it would be "Don't engage with crazy." If I had two mottos in the life, the second would be, "A top coat makes all the difference!" I love painting my own nails, and while I am not as good as a real manicurist I still do a pretty good job, also I make house calls at my leisure. Through trial and error I have learned you must use a top coat, ladies. It keeps your mani going for longer and adds shine and that little professional touch. This version is inexpensive and does the job, plus it dries quickly.

• Little manicure scissors

If you don't own a pair of good manicure scissors, get thee immediately to a drugstore. The tiny, sharp little points are perfect for precisely trimming your nails and cuticles. These scissors come in handy for everything from removing tags out of delicate clothing to trimming split ends on the fly. This is one of those all-purpose tools that I keep in my makeup bag at all times. And they're cheap!

... and that concludes the manicure section. For now.

• Applesauce

Lately I am all over applesauce. The individual servings are portable, tasty snacks around 50 calories per cup. Read the label, though. Good applesauce is just one ingredient -- apples! The single-serve cups don't need refrigeration so they're perfect for travel or lunch bags. It's like pudding made from fruit. Delicious.

• Wine: Six At A Time!

This isn't really an item, it's more of a tip for smart shopping. If you buy six or more bottles of wine or liquor -- mix and match anything -- most grocery stores will give you a discount on the total price. Ralph's gives a whopping 30% discount on top of the sale price. It's the perfect way to get very good, semi-expensive wine even if you're not rolling naked in money.

For example, a bottle of Folie a Deux Cabernet retails at Ralph's for $25.99. The sale price last week was $17.99 and with the 30% discount the final price is $12.59. That saves you $13.40 per bottle! You save more than the wine cost. This is a delicious wine for steak, pork chops, and anything with a heavy cream sauce.

Not sure what else to splurge on? I recommend La Crema Chardonnay, delicious and creamy just like the name implies. The regular price is $24.99 a bottle, on sale it's $17.98 and with the discount it's $12.59 -- a savings of $12.40 a bottle. For a bubbly, you can never go wrong with Veuve Clicquot Champagne. Regular $59.99, sale price is $53.78, and with the 30% discount you pay $37.59. That's a savings of $22.40, enough to buy another great bottle of wine.

Now that makes everyone happy.

Finally, a product that lost my love...

For years I listed Revlon Colorstay Overtime Sheer lip gloss in Sheer Mocha color as one of my all-time favorite beauty buys. It was inexpensive, available everywhere and the color was PERFECT. Sure, the product itself could be a little chalky by day's end and the gloss was a tad gloppy but that was a small price to pay for a perfect color. I heard from lots of readers who also loved this product for its natural and flattering color tones.

Revlon "revamped" the product. The gloss is still gloppy and the color is still chalky, but they changed all the colors. Every shade is just a little peachier and pinker now, enough to be completely unwearable for me.

Revlon, I've learned to accept that products I love may come and go, but if you keep the color palette standard I'll stick with you. Unfortunately, you regularly throw away entire color lines and replace them with colors that never seems as good. It makes me distrust you. Since I know you will discontinue any product I like and you won't bother to give me a decent replacement, it's better to just not get attached to you at all.

So I am over you, Revlon. We're through.

I have yet to find a complete replacement, here's what I'm using (and liking) in the meantime:

• A glossy, smooth lipstick in the vicinity of the sheer mocha color family, NARS sheer lipstick in Dolce Vita. It's pretty, but you have to reapply often.

• A smooth, velvety balm from Vapour Organic Beauty. This is another item I discovered in a Birchbox shipment. I adore the Siren Lipstick in Ravish. Yes, the color looks dark in the tube but it goes on semi-sheer and makes lips soft and perfect. It leaves behind a tint like a stain but less intense (and never dry or chalky.) This product is made with food-grade ingredients, too, always important when it's going on your lips!

* * *

I hope you liked this season's list of Good Stuff. I'm not paid to endorse these products, they're simply things I use and like.

Comments are currently unavailable while I am moving to a new software, but save up your beauty bits and tips for the summer edition! I already have a list brewing of my favorite warm-weather goodies.

xo, L

We Need To Talk About Boggle

In times of heightened stress, my release-valve pastimes include wine drinking, TV viewing, experimenting with new and unusual make-up products, and playing online Boggle. When the stress is very intense you may find me doing all these activities all at the same time. That is power multi-tasking, right there, and it makes me feel proud to have lived in an era when I can bring so many great inventions together at one time to form a warm cocoon of solitude.

Next time you're in a stress tsunami, try it: sipping pinot with newly-painted nails while playing Boggle and watching a re-run of Law & Order from 1995. It's like all the good things throwing a party in your life at one time.

However, my perfect plan of brain smoothification is being hijacked by the Boggle Fakers. And Boggle Fakers, I am on to you. Corey and I recently got into a deeply heated phone conversation about the Boggle Fakers.

"She played hem, eft, fer, eth and rheme all in a row! You know that MamaIsabel from St. Louis doesn't walk around using eft and fer in a sentence all day! She's faking it!" I am practically hollering this to Corey.

"Of course she's faking, what fucker on planet earth walks around using tiro, rotte, thir and fes as words?" asked Corey. She's taking notes, trying to make sense of the Boggle Faker strategy.

"OH," I said, dripping with indignation. "They just want to win, but win what? The fake word game? Have they no shame!" I am really on a soapbox now. I can't stop.

"Certainly not Charles from Tampa! Charles from Tampa with his string of fakes including fehs, sei, ais, inti, thirl and sta. Come to my house, Charles," I'm raising my mighty voice of change now, "I'll sta your ass! Or maybe I'll fehs it, but only if that means kick, hard!"

Corey sighed in righteous agreement.

"The worst part of all this, Corey, is that he beat me by a single point!" I was whining, woeful, and deeply wronged. "I used all real words, he used almost all fakes. It isn't fair!"

And because she is a good and true friend who knows my deep pain, Corey responded with the only thing that would help:

"I hope he gets a bad case of itching, burning sta real soon! With Fehs hives!"

First world problems, ladies. I got 'em.

You see, in online Boggle you can play against other real humans. This adds an element of excitement and competition to the game that you don't get from playing against your computer. For one thing, it feels amazing to crush the Boggle soul of a stranger while drinking wine and hearing the Law & Order theme song. But it also feels good to meet a worthy competitor who keeps you on your toes and makes your brain stretch for those five- and six-letter words. I have lost and lost with honor to many Bogglers who play real words and got an honest win off me.

In every game I straight up abide by the unspoken Boggle Rule: only play words you can actually define or use in a sentence. Those are real words. I play REAL WORDS. I don't game the system, randomly punching in a series a letters hoping they make a word ... like you, MomofTwo from Columbus, Ohio. And I don't play words that are fakes even though Boggle will accept them (I'm looking at you, Joe from New Zealand.) We all make fat finger mistakes, so of course in every game there's a margin of error, but it's small, maybe six words and under. And you may think I can't tell you're gaming the system BUT I CAN. That means you, Lynnda from Daytona Beach!!

And it's not just about losing. I often beat my opponents, even the fakers. But it's a hollow win with a faker. If I can only recognize four of your 29 words as real words, and yet I have a list of 32 real words that any average English-speaking human would know are words, then did you just lose to me ... or did you not even try at all?

By the way! If you're composing a mental missive right this second about what is a fake or not fake word, I encourage you to buy Boggle, start playing and get back to me in four days time. Outrage is contagious. You may find it even more addictive than political outrage. Yet so much more meaningful!

And while we are on the subject and you are already judging me anyway for being so on my high horse about The Great Boggle Situation of Never, I want to know why the game will accept the word "tit" but not the word "tits." Though both teat and teats are acceptable.

Arse is acceptable, but ass is not a recognized word.

After we send all the Fake Bogglers to Boggle Jail, I totally want to meet the standards and practices writer for Hasbro. You know it was someone's job to sit in a room and decide which words would be permitted and which words would be too filthy. (Porn does not make the cut, but booger is acceptable.) Call me, Boggle word monitor. Let's have a drink. Bring only your tit, not your tits, because tits are unacceptable!

And so there you have it, my world, my problems. You may have been wondering what missive of brilliance would come forth here on this website after weeks of silence, and yeah, this is it. Full bore crazy and some Boggle. Gauntlets have been thrown. Laws will be passed or not passed. Wine will be drunk and drunken. I will shake my tiny fist of rage.

Later I will probably play some solitaire.

The return of the clean-crazy

I have been on a tear these past few days, bringing on a total terrorization of clutter. I have no idea where these moments of clean-crazy come from, but when I wake up feeling the deep desire to do a full closet purge it is a day of reckoning.

And I was ruthless in my editing, unloading some things I have been carrying with me for years. The psychic weight of that stuff is alarming, I didn't realize until it was gone that not only have I been holding onto the thing, I was also housing the memory of the time I got that thing, along with the hope that I would one day re-need that thing, as well as the anxiety that comes from having a thing I'm not actively using.

Good grief!

About a week ago there was a particularly disturbing episode of Hoarders that sent me over the edge. I can't bear watching that show when the people who hoard also have animals. Look, it's one thing if you're buck crazy and just want to hoard your old pizza boxes. But to make a child or animal live in that is obscene, a crime against living. This one episode featured a woman with a poop mountain and a dead cat and at the end instead of going to jail for animal cruelty, she got a makeover. How is that possible?

This is one of those times I wish TV were more like YouTube, so one could post a rebuttal video. I'm over here holding up the opposite picture: a person can have more than one cat and still have a clean and happy home. YES! Clean! Happy! My place is nothing fancy, it's true, but you could eat dinner off my kitchen floor. Why isn't that the image people have of cat owners?

The poor cats always get blamed on those horrible hoarder shows, too. As if it were the cat's fault the human was too lazy to scoop and sweep. That is like blaming a car for breaking down after you've failed to change the oil for sixteen months in a row.

Perhaps all of this was the impetus for my recent clean-crazy, just a terrifying television show. I know I'm not the only one in America who has to go scrub something after an hour of Weekly Hoarding TV.

- - -

When it comes to Hoarding TV, there was one show that got it right underneath it all. Back when Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) was still on CSI, his character Langston had a conversation with Nick after a case that involved a severely hoarded home. Nick was having trouble understanding how anyone could ever hoard a home. This was their convo:

Langston: The philosopher Erich Fromm forecast a society that was obsessed with possessions. He believed that human beings have two basic orientations -- having and being. A person with the having orientation seeks to acquire and possess things, property, even people. The person with the being orientation focuses on the experience. They derive meaning from the exchanging, engaging, and sharing with other people.

Nick: Sounds like the right way to be...

Langston: Unfortunately Fromm also predicted that a culture driven by commercialism, like the one we live in today, is doomed to the having orientation, which leads to dissatisfaction and emptiness. When you consider that in 1960 there was no such thing as public storage in America ... and today there are over two billion square feet dedicated to it, it makes you think he had a point. Things don't have to mean everything nor do they have to be devoid of meaning. They are one of the ways in which we can experience and enjoy life.

Nick: As long as they don't get in the way of living...

- - -

So there is my TV philosophy for the day. And for the record, people with cats can have VERY CLEAN HOMES. Oh doubters -- I challenge you to a clean-off. I am Inigo Montoya and you insulted my housekeeping, prepare to scour!

(Comments are open for a bit.)

All the things plus that time I almost burned down the building with a pop tart

The first thing you should know is that I paid almost $300 to have someone professionally install the new version of this software on my server, because upgrading from 2004 MT software to 2012 MT software is just so far outside my bowling lane that I literally deleted the entire database, whoops. But I HATE this new software. HATE. Loathe. Bad feelings. I finally discovered what the problem was with the comments, by the way. The "spam filter" (in ironic quotes) filtered out only the real comments and left the spam comments to free-for-all and make spam sex in my comments section. I do not know how I plan to address this. Just a few weeks ago I deleted over 12,000 spam comments. And that was just the tip of the crazyberg, there are something like 50,000 more. So ennui descended -- cue French music! -- and I just avoided this website which seemed like a good option at the time.

Thank you in advance for the solutions you are going to email me but I also have not read blog email since October. There should be a better excuse here, but I went on vacation with my family in mid-October with no email access, and when I got back my account was so overrun it was impossible so I just got irritated and opened a personal email account somewhere else. How do spammers even make money? How is it possible that the presidential candidates talk so much about so little yet they never mention spam? Spam affects ALL OF US. It also especially affects me so I will only vote for the person who officially offers to make spamming a federal crime.

Today I have a new strategy. I am just going to turn off all comments and go back to the tedious work of spam deletion and then figure out a solution at a later date with wine.

In some ways I imagine the way I feel about this website is the way a young wayward 30-something feels when she turns up one day unexpectedly pregnant, gets freaked out then excited and then happy, changes everything about her life, only to wake up eight years later to discover the child she is raising is a sociopath who does bad things to caterpillars. She still feels love for the child, but she kind of wants to institutionalize it and pretend it isn't hers.

So that brings us up to date! Hello, readers!

ALSO. There is good new news but I can't quite share it yet since I'm superstitious. So that comes later. In the meantime, a few things:

1) Funniest Dialogue Ever, from 30 Rock

Jenna, talking about Liz Lemon's surprisingly rich acquaintance uber-nerd:

"I don't know a lot about business, but he did an internet, now the computers like him, and Wall Street is Google."

Sadly, I may never be Google that way. [For reference, see: entire complaining monologue above about my own website.]

2) Chicken Chili, not even chili, but I like it, I like it, I really like it.

I realize I have written about this chili recipe 437 times and yet it is not even real chili. Real chili, as all Southerners know, is made from ground beef. You can make your "chili" from tofu or turkey or chicken or scrambled iguana eggs but the mean-spirited quotation marks stand. It is not real chili. Real chili is all cow. (WOW, coincidentally, did I pick a great day to turn off comments or what! Sorry, vegans, no comments for you today.)

Southerners are so crazy about chili that entire families have been torn apart by the controversial issue of beans. Do beans belong in chili? My family from Texas says no, by the way, though I myself am partial to the more bayou side and I like some red beans in my chili. My father's chili is all beef, no beans and it is often spooned over enchiladas. Whole 'nother ball of wax.

So this chicken recipe is just crazypants, but that is why I love it. You can add any old thing and it's still great, though not traditional, and maybe that is what makes it so great. It's all improv! I start with a whole chopped big brown onion, more than the recipe calls for. I add it to the pot along with a whole chopped red bell pepper and a green bell pepper. Tons of fresh garlic. Then I add finely chopped chicken breast (tip: freeze the chicken a bit before chopping, it goes so much faster when it's a bit frozen.) Add all the spices and stuff like the recipe calls for. But you can switch up the beans, I usually add one can of white beans and one can of mixed-up beans, the Ralph's store brand has an organic version of black beans, red beans and pinto beans mixed together and they are great. I also add in about a cup of very finely chopped green stuff -- maybe kale or chard, whatever is on sale. You can't taste it and it adds some nutrition.

At the very end of the cook time I add a tiny dash of cinnamon. Sounds crazy but it adds some warmth and coziness to this totally not-chili chili. The recipe makes a HUGE pot of food so you have plenty to freeze for later. It freezes great, too. If you get your chicken on sale this dish adds up to about $7.00 for ten servings. Not bad, Chad!

3) The Chocolate Pop Tarts are the dangerous ones

I have this cheap toaster that I bought God Only Knows Where and since I rarely toast anything it's not a big life issue for me, like spam or chili or television. I have very strong feelings about those other topics, but toasting is not really on my worry list.

Yesterday I was at the store getting the ingredients for my chicken chili and I found myself alone in the pop tart aisle and I had the chocolate goodness in my basket so quick and downlow you'd think I was scoring heroin on an episode of Intervention. I got home and dug the toaster out of the cupboard and plugged it in and set my pop tarts to toast and they toasted all right. The plunger thingy just stayed plunged. They never popped up like in the commercial.

I'm pretty sure I haven't consumed a pop tart in about ten years so I wasn't paying that much attention to the pop tart protocol and I was distracted, you see, and dusting the weird little vent at the bottom of the fridge and I could smell the intensity of chocolate pop tart but I didn't know it was ON FIRE until the smoke alarm sounded and there were flames -- yes, flames! - inside my toaster.

Lest you think this is a story with a sad ending, may I remind you that pop tarts comes in boxes of pairs, and there was a reserve waiting for me. So I used the microwave to heat my backup tarts. I know when a machine cannot be trusted.

I have at least learned that much.

In which I recap TV as if I were at the Entertainment Weekly staff meeting

Oh, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (Mondays, 9 p.m. Bravo TV, also in infinite repeats forever especially on sick days.)

I may be venturing to your Villa Blanca and I may be indeed loving your cruel assessment that both Malibu (where Camille lives) and Westlake Village (where Kim lives) are so, so far away from the city and the shoes and the fake eyelashes.

That's one of those inside-L.A. snob jokes. Like the time I tweeted about the insane paparazzi I'd just passed on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks outside Marmalade and some uppity nobody from nowhere informed me that "no celebrities worth photographing go to the Valley."

On that particular day at Marmalade it was Jennifer Aniston. Not to be outdone, just a few weeks ago Angelina Jolie and some of her tribe showed up for the Studio City Farmer's Market, so here's a big tongue sticking out claiming boo-yah rights at the goobernut who believes the Valley is full of nothing but auto detailing shops and gangland violence. Not that we don't love our auto body shops and smooth pelositos, but on the boulevard we are all about celebs.

So, Kim admits she's an alcoholic, Dana is normal but in this light looks crazy, Ken seems oddly hot and all I miss is Jiggy. Taylor pulls my strings -- I mean, I am a girl who sides with girls -- but something about her makes me wary. Brandi cracks me UP. I would totally watch Vanderfabulous spinoff with Brandi in tow. If only her name were Tanqueray, it would be so fitting.

Thus concludes another season of the Beverly Hills Housewives.

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I Just Want My Pants Back (MTV, 11 p.m. Thursdays)

The Parents TV Council wants MTV to drop this new show, obviously because it is funny and realistic-ish (still, the apartments are too big) and the Council thinks it's too racy for kids. My suggestion? CALL MY DAD. He never let me watch TV alone. We picked shows as a family and watched TV together. That is appropriate, people. When you are 12, you shouldn't be running nilly willy through the world of backdoor jokes.

Anyway, this show is funny and sweet, surprisingly. I love how it captures that time in your twenties before you become a jaded Dating Oracle with nothing but stories and wisdom left ... the characters still have their souls and their hopes and their funny love-hungry misadventures. It's solid. I like it. Make the Parental Control people just control their own kids, OK?

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SMASH (Mondays, NBC)

Meh. I watched the pilot but the whole time I rooted for Megan Hilty and not Katherine McPhee. It's my cue that I should un-Tivo this one.

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American Idol (FOX, Wednesdays and Thursdays)

I was SO BUMMED that we wasted one entire of Group Night and MY LIFE to see no singing at all last week. You are on notice, American Idol. To be a singing competition, people must SING.

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Law & Order

Not realizing the width and breadth and prolific availability of 20 years of now-canceled Law & Order episodes, I started tivo'ing them last week. I was just in a mood. You understand. Now I go to bed each night thinking that theme, CHA-CHUM. But I like it. Who was your fave? Chris Noth? Lenny Briscoe? I liked Fred Thompson. I need justice to PREVAIL, people.

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Revenge(Wednesdays, ABC, 10 p.m.)

Best new show of the year. I am soapified and sucked in! I love every aspect of this show, it is exactly what a nighttime soap should be down to the fabulous clothing.

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Prime Suspect(never, NBC)

NBC canceled the one series I fell in love with this year besides Revenge. Sure the pilot was clunky, but as time went by Maria Bello was the finest thing on TV and a revelation as a soft/hard woman on the force. Screw you, NBC. I am so mad at you.

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CSI(Thursdays, CBS, 10 p.m.)

Elisabeth Shue!

I was sad to see the departure of Marg Helgenberger, one of the strongest female leads in the long line of CSI: Dead White Woman Of The Week shows. But I loves me some Elisabeth Shue. Here is why I admire here -- she inspires me. She does some teeny movies in the 1980s, lands a big dramatic role in Leaving Las Vegas that tears your heart in two, and later re-surfaces in a Piranha movie. I really get that kind of career. I understand it. It makes sense to me. Keep in mind my Shakespearean oeuvres have lately been about hair removal or online dating, so choose your source wisely. But I am so looking forward to Shue classing up the joint.

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Bones(Thursdays, FOX)

Just come back already! Thanks to my Twitter friends who helped me uncover the scoop, Bones comes back on (GASP!!!) April 5, 2012. I'll be like, old, by then.

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Finally....

Hoarders(Mondays, A&E)

I don't watch this show live so it may already be in repeats. I TiVo it and watch one episode each morning before I start a major cleaning effort. I can usually make it through 20 minutes of the show before I have to scour something, re-grout a sink or take a full Silkwood.

Once a long time ago some bloke left me an unsavory comment when he saw a picture of my cute cat FrankiePanky sitting on the table. He said something like, "I would never eat there..."

I wanted to email him back and ask for his address. I know and you know that I have some enthusiastic issues (read: OCD) with my cleaning binges. But the poster clearly didn't know that. I wanted to show up to his house in decontamination gear and a respirator with a clipboard. I can guarantee you that even with my cats sitting their fluffy hinds here and there my home is cleaner than any man's home, barring his own bout with OCD (manifesting in a cleanliness disorder, natch). I am living proof that people can have animals inside the home and still have a clean, sanitary, fresh home. Why? Because a sister be crazy for some Clorox wipes and a Dyson. But I don't judge others. I know I border on the Mr. Clean Crazy Spectrum. (Mr. Clean is so cute, a peloncito!) and we all do the best we can. You know my belief is that your best truly is good enough.

Hoarders has changed me in good ways, and that to me is a sign of good TV. While I freely admit to some clean-crazy OCD stuff, I also am a a level one hoarder. I try much harder to part with my hoarded stuff now, because cleaning and arranging all my stuff is exhausting. I recognize that I have Stage One clutter blindness: I may become blind to the mail piling up on the desk or the magazines neatly stacked in the corner. Or even to the shoes piled neatly in the doorway shoe rack.

So when I notice a pile I actually notice it. That's a good step. But most of all I realize how important it is to get even the most minor home repairs fixed immediately. All the TV hoarders seem to share the same fate ... the plumbing or the electricity has failed and they can't get anyone in to fix it. Or they put it off for so long it's impossible. But every hoarded home is the same: plumbing problems, bad wires, no sink.

Today I had the plumber out, he fixed the garbage disposal and a wonky shower stall lever. I mopped and cleaned beforehand, of course, but he left boot prints on the floor so I mopped after, too. Everything works tonight. That's how you know you aren't going to fall into hoarding. You make a point to do upkeep. You get someone out to perform a look-see after the wonky garbage disposal. That is what the show helped me see.

Get it done. And do it now.

TV!

Big Face

Comments are off site-wide until some of the issues with the new software upgrade can be addressed. In the meantime, Soba!

Ridiculous New Software

Is it working?

Want to test the comments?

It says it is accepting comments, but a global setting may be in override. Let me fiddle with it... more to come...

UPDATE: Some brainiac at MT thinks it's a good idea to make you approve each comment? Really? This is what ya'll call advancement in software?

If someone can give me a quick fix for problem #1 of 5,0000 let me know. All comments should flow with no filter. JEEZ MUTHAEFFING PLEEZE.