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| Actress Melissa McCarthy, posing fat and less fat. |
Why is complimenting someone's newly-svelte body perfectly okay, if not downright expected, while condemning that same person's body when it was obese a forbidden act worthy of censure?
If weight loss is so inspiring, what is fat acceptance all about?
I can't wait to read it. Finally I'll be able to get some sleep.
Still, I just can't make the prescribed meal like a rat in a laboratory so I'm cooking whatever the heck I want. Today it's pot roast but there will be apple pie and pumpkin pie for dessert, naturally with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream as options. And really, isn't that all that matters?
Whoopie Goldberg: Fake name, false persona in a garbage bag
Robert DeNiro: Former actor turned lunatic loudmouth
Kim Kardashian: Human version of Mr. Potato Head
Rachel Maddox: Man trapped inside a female asshole
Chris Hayes: Icky vermin that speaks
Nancy Pelosi: Millionaire pretending to be a commoner
Ilhan Omar: Hates America and Americans
Kamala Harris: Brown-skinned clown in a DEI-world gone mad
Hillary Clinton: Outdated old bag of evil tricks
Christmas is so two-faced. As a Jew, it's hard to know which is the most important one to most celebrants. There's the whole Jesus-virgin-Mary-born-in-a-manger-son-of-God thing, with people going to mass on Christmas morning or Christmas Eve. And then there's this:
Today, while searching for the name of a Chinese restaurant nearby that's open on Thanksgiving I stumbled upon a story about a medical condition commonly referred to as "no-burp syndrome." It has a medical name which thankfully I have already forgotten, but I was compelled to read about it because I'm pretty sure I have it!
I never burp. Not now, or anytime in the past. Turns out this is not so good and leads to several quasi-serious and some totally unfortunate health issues, which as luck would have it I do experience on occasion. Am I supposed to call my doctor and ask about treatment for this?
It's not fatal and I've got bigger fish to fry. I just hope I can forget it. Maybe I'll just ask my doctor friend Robert about it when he finishes with his bone marrow transplant. And believe me, if you want to know the details of that brutal procedure, just Google it. You'll find out way more than you wanted to know.
What happened was this. A woman came in to vote and identified herself as, "Lynda Doyle. Lynda with a Y." (Like there was gonna be a Linda Doyle, Linda with an I, coming in to vote after her? Whatever, it made me realize that she felt her name was special enough to mention its spelling. Maybe I should do that and feel more special too.
My name is Andrea. It's ordinary, although not all that common -- for example, there's never been a Hurricane Andrea. Anyway, it reeks of yesterday when names were normal and not just a bunch of letters strung together. But hey -- I want to be with it, now and somewhat funky, despite being as old as the hills.
Just yesterday I got a funky, spiky haircut suitable for a teenager. So my name should reflect who I am, which is a young person trapped in an old person's body. To that end, I'm testing out the following:
'Nd-raya, Awndray'A, Raya, Rea, A+Ndrea An/Dreee'A, and Rhoda.
I think Rhoda Rouda has a nice ring to it. Anyway, hopefully someone reading this will weigh in.
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| Is this the best they've got? |
Once again they are rallying the troops behind Cackles Harris, former Veep laughingstock and subject of late-night comedy upgraded to presidential candidate after the Loser-in-Chief was exposed on national TV to be a bumbling dunce in need of a nap.
Is it solely because Harris is half-Jamaican, half-Indian and thus has brown skin? What else does she offer the American people? I am honestly confused.
Even worse -- not that anything could be worse -- if Harris chooses not to run, the next two clowns poised for the nomination are Governor Hair Gel of California and Pete Buttsex, former mayor of a small town in middle America.
According to recent polls and telephone surveys, half the country is brain-dead. I wonder how they got that way. Is there not one decent, smart, non-bizarre Democrat willing or able to serve? Why not? Is it genetic? Are they doomed from birth?
Not only are they taking lucrative
work away from struggling actors who need the money to pay rent and eat, they cheapen their own reputations. Apparently being wealthy means never having enough money. I say boycott whatever it is they are selling, including their movies and TV shows.
She recently claimed on the House floor that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin took $750 in donations to his campaign for Governor of New York State from none other than the infamous Jeffrey Epstein. However, public records show the donations came from a completely different person, a doctor named Jeffrey Epstein, and that the donations were made a year after the pervy Epstein died in prison.
Crockett said her "team" did "a lot of digging" to find out that bit about the donations to Zeldin. So she also hires stupid people. Hilariously, I recently heard a journalist on CNN say that Crockett is the current "head of the Democratic party" and plans to run for president in 2028.
Oh my God, LOL and give me a break. That makes as much sense as Whoopie Goldberg announcing she would "like a job in government" after she leaves The View and hopes to be appointed as a United States Ambassador.
Hey Whoopie, I think there's an open slot in Haiti.
Before I go further, let me say that I asked my focus group of Domino pizza-haters, a.k.a. my husband, what it would take for him to change his opinion. Mitch was ready with quick answers: "Free delivery. Two-dollar pizzas. Better pizzas. And meatballs."
"You mean a meatball pizza?" I asked in order to clarify. "No, just meatballs. I like meatballs," he replied. With the exception of the last one, his answers made perfect sense. But that's nothing at all like what Domino's is planning.
Their rebranding will consist of brighter colors on the pizza box, a new jingle in their ads featuring country music star Shaboozey, and a thicker font in their logo. And if you order a pizza with a stuffed crust, it will arrive in an "upgraded, elegant black and gold box" instead of the ordinary red, white and blue they've used until now.
Anyway, as I said at the beginning, it's insulting. Like they think we care what color those used pizza boxes encrusted with melted cheese and grease are for storing our family heirlooms and important papers. Also, I hate thick fonts and I never heard of Shaboozey.
When it premiered in 2019, The Morning Show was a fun series that mimicked the fallout surrounding TV's favorite morning show anchor, Matt Lauer, who was discovered to be a sexual predator while on the job. Starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell, it had a lot going for it and kept my attention throughout the first two seasons. After that it got sort of crazy, as if the writers were making it up on the set, possibly while sniffing cocaine.
Now into Season Four, the plot is meandering but still totally off the wall. The writers may now be tripping on acid. Steve Carrell is long gone, as is any semblance of reality. I doubt anyone involved can explain what's happening, but working as a journalist at a TV station has very little to do with it.
We watched one episode last night, and all I can say for sure is that Jennifer Aniston, once considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, if not the world, is slowly morphing into Andy Rooney. I wonder, did she ask her plastic surgeon for that result? (See photos below.)
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| Andy |
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| Jennifer |
I am happy and sad about this simultaneously. Happy because I'm free at last, but sad because I only do it for my son to give him memories of a happy family dinner after I'm gone, but it's never happy. In fact, our biggest blowouts have often happened over this meal. So he'll have to content himself with memories of all the other Thanksgivings I've made since his birth 38 years ago.
Besides, my own mother never made a Thanksgiving meal, not once. She was a terrible cook and would not even know which end of the turkey to stuff and I still loved her anyway. (Fortunately my grandmother could whip up that meal in her sleep, so I was not deprived of this ritual as a child.)
Perhaps if we lived somewhere other than Maine we would be invited to dinner at a friend's house. Alas, that has not happened in 15 years here, where family is all that matters and strangers are considered strange. Anyway, one less turkey will be eaten this year. At least that's something.
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| On the porch at The Island Inn, Monhegan ME, 1970 |
To begin, Francis Swett Whiting was a fabulous cook. Her idea of a tuna salad sandwich involved first grilling a filet of fresh tuna, then whisking up some homemade mayonnaise and serving it on melba toast she baked from a loaf of extra-thin Pepperidge Farm white bread.
With that in mind, you can imagine what Christmas was like at her beautiful home in Bedford Village, NY. She got started in mid-September, beginning the long process of making hard sauce for the plum pudding and hand-stringing garlands of popcorn and cranberries for the tree. Fran loved to knit, so each year she created fabulous gifts for her entire family. One year she made cable-knit fisherman's sweaters for five people, myself included.
Besides being very beautiful until the day she died at age 64, Fran was super-smart. Her Smith College education benefitted all who knew her, although she never had a paying job. She won every Scrabble game and finished the daily New York Times crossword puzzle in record time.
She was hysterically funny, with a dry sense of humor that was lost on many. I visited with her a few days before she died of stomach cancer, and she gave me the following instructions: "The day after I die, Lucia Faithfull (widow of her husband's deceased law partner) will come to the door with a casserole for Dick, to console him. She's been hoping for years that I would go first so she could snag him. Don't let her in. And whatever you do, certainly don't eat that casserole -- she's a terrible cook!" Sure enough, Lucia showed up around noon the day after Fran died, casserole in hand. I politely took it from her and said that Dick was resting and not seeing anyone. She left unhappy.
Happy Birthday Fran, wherever you are! I still miss you.
Why should I care about the habits of Jeffrey Epstein, a man who died in prison six years ago and never even held public office?
Why should we all fret over his private island, his private jet, his sexual deviance, or his friends, whoever they may be?
Why does a sexually twisted dead man dominate the news, on TV and in print, when so much unrest roils the globe?
Who cares if anyone at all had sex with underage girls, yesterday or decades ago, besides the parents of those girls?
How does this story impact the world or our country's national and international policies?
How does knowing the names of Epstein's associates feed America's starving families, pay their rent and medical bills or further their education?
This all took a heavy toll on us, specifically our arms, legs and backs. But hey, the old carpeting was stained and starting to buckle, and the new one would be much nicer.
This morning at eight the carpet people arrived to start what was sold as a job that would end tomorrow morning. We planned to sleep in our small guest room, along with clothes and pillows and lamps, etc., just for tonight. But no. What happened instead was the carpet guy, who looked old enough to be somebody's great-grandpa, causing me to question his suitability for carpet-laying, worked for 90 minutes laying down the soft pad that goes under the carpet before going outside, getting in his truck and driving off without a word, never to return.
We received no phone calls explaining his mysterious departure, but through our constant calls to the Paul White Company in Portland, Maine, we finally learned that the installer left because he had or was having or was about to have a heart attack and is now in the hospital.
Apparently Paul White had no backup plan so there's no telling when we'll ever get back to our regular life. Until then we'll be in the guest room on a smaller, full-sized bed with Mitch's feet hanging off the end. It's not fun and we are pissed about it. Looking on the bright side, I went for a chest x-ray two days ago and learned that I do not have lung cancer, or even pneumonia -- just a lingering cough from the bad cold I had about six weeks ago.
His rent is free as his rich mother pays for the $14,000/month Tribeca loft. His private security is provided by two off-duty NYPD police officers-- the same ones he wants abolished -- who stand sentry outside his door 24/7.
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| What they wore to school in 1900 in Australia. |
Quite possibly the absolute worst movie I have ever slept through, Picnic At Hanging Rock defies further description other than the words I just wrote, except that the music is so horrible you've got to keep the sound down low. Or better yet, just shut the damn thing off. There is no reason at all to see it, yet it has been named the best film of all time in Australia where it was made by director Peter Weir and released in 1975, winning all sorts of awards at the time.
Australia is now off my bucket list.
What I find most amusing is that the Democrats who elected him are the same ones wailing that President Trump is a "threat to Democracy," yet they have anointed an avowed, unabashed and untested Socialist. Following are two definitions to consider:
Democracy: A form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. to deliberate and decide legislation to governing officials.
Socialism: A theory or system of social reform which contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor. In popular usage, the term is often employed to indicate any lawless, revolutionary social scheme.
Actress Melissa McCarthy, posing fat and less fat. One thing I don't understand about America's love affair with obesity is if it...
