Maybe I should change the name of the blog to “posts only on the last day of the month”

This is what’s happened since my last post: work, work, a week of travel for work, work, Thanksgiving, recover from food coma, and blam, it’s the end of the month.
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I wonder if people who learn English As A Second Language from some snotty American recent college grad end up with terrible American accents.
This thought came to me as I watched a documentary about the Eurovision Junior song contest, which is broadcast in English, and all the contestants spoke great English, some with British accents and some with odd American accents. (And nice job, Sundance channel, with your constant ads for some program that airs next Tuesday taking up the right side of the screen and blocking part of the subtitles).
In a Where Are They Now wrap-up at the end of the film it was noted that the contest winner and her family had to flee their home during the Georgian-Russian conflict and hoped to someday safely move to Tbilisi. Now there’s a story you just don’t hear on American Idol.
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I miss Lost. And Mad Men. I’ve been watching The Walking Dead and I do like it but I confess I have to watch HGTV afterward to help stave off the nightmares. I don’t “do” horror movies. The last one I watched was The Ring and I was so creeped out (and it was 3 in the afternoon with the sun out) that I could not watch the last two minutes. The last two minutes! I’ve been told they were key. Oh well.
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I hate those mascara ads that feature models who are clearly wearing fake eyelashes and promise that their product will give you those kind of lashes. False advertising! (pun intended)
And speaking of cosmetic companies, why is it so hard for them to make a nice shade of dark red nail polish that matches the one in my head?
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For Thanksgiving I made this kick-ass pecan pie recipe, except I doubled the nuts, and I toasted them in the oven first. Make it. Even if you think you don’t like pecan pie, make it. Your people will love you.
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More random Tuesday here. Ciao blog babies.

Three birds, one post

I have long wanted to join this blogger in the Random Tuesday Thoughts posts that this blogger put together. And this blogger has started a fun Fill In The Blanks series. And I have a half-dozen half-started blog posts (including one that somehow includes both Michael Crichton’s art collection and the Times Square bomber. I know, right?). So in the interest of posting something new, here are my Random Tuesday Thoughts via Fill In The Blank:

1. My guiltiest pleasure is really trashy chick-lit novels. Also gossip mags at the hairdresser (where I’m headed tomorrow night to get the roots done).
2. I can't wait to watch both Glee and Lost tonight (nerd alert)
3. The last song I listened to was something by Mountain that my boss was playing a little too loudly in his office. I curse the day I introduced him to Pandora. Not because of Mountain, but because of the constant onslaught of music I didn’t pick. I don’t know how he gets anything done.
4. You really can't beat a good book. No relation to #1 above.
5. My least favorite sound is the cats trying to break into the bedroom (plaintive meowing and standing on hind legs to rattle the doorknob. Obnoxious) at 5 am looking for their breakfast when it is clearly not breakfast time. Also see #3 above. I love the sound of the Italian language. Too bad I don’t understand a word of it (except the ones related to food and wine).

Ciao, bellas. More Random Tuesday fun at the UnMom.

“What I really need are a pistol and a sword” and other random Halloween statements

One night last week while I was in Chicago on biz, The BF called me and we had a very serious conversation about our costumes for Meg & Mo’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah/Halloween Party this weekend (we are going as Captain Morgan And His Wench). Right about the time that I realized that anyone overhearing this earnest discussion about eye patches and boot covers and the sewing of jabots and hats matching coats would think we were crazy, The BF says “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” Now I had been having a very trying time at work, the kind of week where you think maybe if I blow something up or throw something out a window, I’ll feel better. So my new mantra has been “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” It seems to be working for me.

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Someone in my apartment building keeps leaving bowls of Halloween candy by the elevator, and it's the highlight of my day.

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The other night I went shopping for the aforementioned eye patch and assorted Wench-like accessories, and overheard two young men who were quite dismayed over the inaccuracy of the insignia on the Star Trek costumes. Dude, you are buying a $35 polyester costume at Party City. Did you really think it would be authentic?

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My favorite Halloween costume as a child was 1977, 5th grade, Princess Leia. White turtleneck, white long-sleeved dress that my grandma had sewn out of a sheet, and a gold chain belt of my mother’s. I wore my hair in two buns that were more like munchkins than the coffee rolls Carrie Fisher sported, but there was no doubting who I was. We went trick-or-treating with some family friends in a nice development of endless cul-de-sacs in the next town. One of their neighbors was dressed as a tomato and she kept losing her newspaper stuffing, so by the end of the night she looked like a sun-dried tomato, only it was 1977 and no one knew what those were yet.  When we were done, our dads “inspected” our candy. Funny how the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups were always “suspiciously damaged.”

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On one of our early morning walks, Meg and I were discussing how all the commercially available costumes for women are always “sexy”. Sexy Vampire. Sexy Nurse. Sexy Angel. You can even be a Sexy Detective. It’s all so very wrong. Mariska Hargitay is a sexy detective. A grown woman in a miniskirt, crop top, white knee socks and a Sherlock Holmes hat is just pathetic.

We thought it would be a great feminist statement to buy 6 “sexy” costumes, cut them up and sew them back together as one patchwork outfit of misappropriated identities (you can take the women out of the women’s college, etc.). It never happened, but this text exchange did, a few days later:

Meg: I think I am going to be a Flight Attendant for Halloween

Me: Regular or Sexy?

Meg: Stop that!

Me: I don’t think you can buy a non-sexy flight attendant costume

Meg: I found one on Etsy!

So now I am going as a Pirate Wench and she is going as Joan Halloway from Mad Men (insert slight jealousy here). We’re going to be sexy without baring our midriffs, exposing our boobs or hiking up our skirts.

And we will inspect our own candy, thank you.

And by candy, I mean cocktails. Happy Sexy Halloween.