A long time ago, in a land far away, Mel Gibson was very, very famous.  And I had more money than I had common sense.

My how times have changed.   For both of us.

However, I am left of a reminder of both of our glorious pasts in the form of an autographed “Braveheart” poster.    “Braveheart” was my FAVORITE. MOVIE. EVER. For such a long time.    I loved everything about it, the fighting, the sense of history (no matter how correct it was or was not) and …  THE ROMANCE.

I loved it so much, my husband surprised me with this gift:

Such a sweet gift way back when.  In our previous home before he came down with a really bad case of the CRAZY, Mel had a prominent place in our game room.     When we moved, he was sort of relegated to a back wall as the new house was smaller and had less space for our autograph collection….and I’m sorry but Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. will always be more important….and were probably as intoxicated when their picture was taken as Mel was during that really unfortunate traffic stop a few years ago.

I  hated Mel for his antisemetic remarks when he got arrested and swore to never see a movie of his again.   But to be honest, I sort of forgot the picture was there or you would have seen this post quite a while ago.    Last week, we got rid of our never used pool table in order to make a more kid friendly TV area upstairs and I noticed he was still there.

It was sort of a “What the hell are YOU doing here???” moment and Mel was promptly ripped off the wall and stuffed into a closet.

Now I have no idea what to do with him.  I have a few options:

• Try to sell it on ebay and hope there is an audience for autographs of extremely bigotted, male pigs with no hopes of ever acting again.
• Paint my face blue and white and while brandshing a sword and a sheild (and without undies under my kilt) yell, “You may take the pride of every human on the earth other than white Catholic males….but you will never take OUR FREEDOM!!!!“  as I stab the poster repeatedly.
• …or, replace the picture with this, which I think is far more appropriate and current:

Thoughts?

“The best dinner party guests ever (alive or dead, but the dead ones would have to be alive because of a Time Travel Machine that you or someone you knew made, otherwise they would be really bad guests as they wouldn’t eat your food or talk and would smell and their head would fall off into some soup…)

Wait. What?

Okay, now I get it and I love me some Pippa for asking. I could tell you about bringing someone back from the dead and a great dinner we had where their head did not fall off in their soup but that would be too easy. So Pippa, I’m turning that question on it’s head and telling you about the worst dinner party in the history of….well, ever.

We had a friend over for a grill last year. A friend we don’t see often for reasons that are about to become clear to you because we don’t live very close to each other. Let’s all pretend we are in the witness protection program and call him BBQ Bill from now on…because I really don’t want him to ever find us again.

BBQ Bill shows up with his kids :45 minutes early while I’m still running around in a towel with curlers in my hair. Oddly enough, he has a HUGE cooler with him even though we told him not to bring anything. Normally, I’d assume our guest brought adult beverages but I was a bit confused as it was only the three of us (because in this house we have a strict one beer per child limit) (also, I’M KIDDING) and the cooler could easily hold two cases of beer and a few bottles of wine.

But it wasn’t beer and wine.

It was meat. At least 50 lbs of raw meat. Even though we told him we had the food covered. Beef, chicken, ribs, you name it. I’ve never seen so much raw meat outside of the grocery store. I’m not kidding you when I tell you what once was a small farm was now in that cooler.

So I looked at The Man and The Man looked at me and shrugged his shoulders (because we are both totally at the WTF??? portion of this story a mere :15 in, which is never a good sign) So we finally asked the million dollar question, “What’s with all the meat?”

At that point, BBQ Bill informed us he doesn’t have a grill at home so he’s going to grill this meat (50 lbs!) on our grill and store it for future dinners. Which, no big deal right? It wouldn’t be normally, no. But…the grill we bought is crap, and after about an hour or so of high heat, giant plumes of black smoke start to emerge and stain our house which is entirely white brick a lovely shade of grossness. Witness the setup:

Needless to say, The Man and I tend to be careful to avoid this very situation. Not that day. BBQ Bill took over the grill….for four hours. This, in and of itself, was annoying. Aside from the whole house turning black you should know that in the summer in Texas, we tend to grill and run inside because hell has nothing on us heat wise. Four hours of it and you are basically dealing with three adults soaked in sweat and smelling of charred flesh…which is to say, not my style. It was all too much…how much meat can one man grill? (50 lbs in case you weren’t following)

The fact that his son was pulling out our in ground sprinkler system and beating my children repeatedly in the pool was really the icing on the cake. (Kids will be kids!) With every thwack and every sizzle I cringed. At some point I’m fairly sure I ended up in the fetal position under the table sucking my thumb though the post traumatic stress disorder prevents me from remembering it all.

The Man did not think I would be able to endure. I did not think The Man would endure. Every time we thought he was done, another burger patty would magically appear and one of our children would scream in the distance. We were at a stalemate as to which one of us was going to go completely freak show and send them running to the street. Sadly, we are both far too polite and it never happened. Though our house, once white, now fully smoke black, was begging us to.

Hours later (eight in total for what was supposed to be a three hour get together), we got them out of our house with their cooler of full of meat, sprinkler system in serious need of repair and children now afraid of anything pole shaped.

As we burned the flesh off of our hands scrubbing with bleach to restore our house to it’s original color (it’s still not quite there) we pinky swore with our ragged fingers to never have them over again.

So thank you Pippa for the question….because just the other day I was thinking we hadn’t seen this guy in a while. Now I remember why.

Now y’all tell me…whats the worst dinner guest you’ve ever had and have you had them back since?

Billy Ray Cyrus called. He wants his mullet back.

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not a full on achey breaky mullet but you are a mere scissor slip away from a full on disaster girlfriend. Also, I know it’s tough getting older. This aging thing is not for the faint of heart. And you had an especially difficult challenge ahead of you.

But girl, a mullet is just never the answer. EVER.

I will say you fared better than your brother, Bobby.

Since you are on the road shilling your new book, “Love to Love You Brady”, I assume we will be seeing more of you. I can only hope that at some point the Ambush Makeover Team on The Today Show gets a hold of you and tames that beast on your head. It would be so much easier to listen to you reliving the glory days of sex, drugs and *cough cough* rock and roll on the set of “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour” without the distraction.

Just a thought.

Yours,
TSM

PS: For any of you that never got the chance to experience “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour”, I sourced out this little gem for you. (The real dancing starts at the 1:35 mark, or you can zip ahead to the 3:46 when disco fever truly takes over the entire Brady Bunch.) Enjoy it, and don’t blame me when these songs gets stuck in your head for all of eternity.

Okay, good, all suited up? Let’s go!

Friday night was the big night, I had about five parties to hit. First off was the Hanes party, which was so fun. I could tell you that the swag bag they gave me contained a bra that actually made my boobs sing out of happiness because it was SO COMFORTABLE but that would be TMI. (Oh wait, I already went there…) They were serving Comfortinis, which btw…YUM…and I got to hang out with some Blissdom friends. Sarah and Cassie, who will never get rid of me now…sorry girls!

Later that night was the Nikon Look Good In Pictures party with none other than Carson Kressley. Which yes, I did meet him…and also managed to kiss him. I don’t have a ton of pics yet (because you know what would have been a smart thing to bring? A CAMERA.) I do have this one…me with Alli Worthington, who so kindly took me to this event, and if the Crazy Woman in the previous post ever wondered why I blog? Being able to count this wonderful woman among my close friends is a good enough reason to make me blog for the rest of my life.

But then, there was the next day….stay with me…I’m getting to the “bad naked”.

So, I wandered, and I wandered, and I wandered some more. And then I thought, “Hey! Let’s go check out the expo for more swag I don’t need!!!” so off to the expo I went. You can imagine my surprise when I saw a familiar shock of white hair at the Walmart booth and realized it was none other than Paula Deen…so I did what any true southerner and cook would do, freaked out, threw a few elbows and managed to score the third to the last position in line….directly behind Mrs. Potato Head. (Trust me, there is a reason you need to know this.)

The line moved fairly quickly but Paula (because I can call her by her first name now) had a serious hard stop to catch her plane. Finally, I got to the front of the line and waited patiently behind Mrs. Potato Head while they delicately navigated her between the table and the VERY EXPENSIVE LOOKING flat screen TVs that Walmart had put up around the display. To her credit, Paula (because like I said, we are totally on a first name basis) didn’t even looked alarmed to be talking to a giant potato. The only thing that seemed to concern her was making sure that the last three of us in line got our turn. (Bless her heart…and I mean that in a sincere and non snarky manner) She finally convinced Mrs. Potato Head that her turn was over and thats when the trouble started.

They couldn’t get her back out.

So they scootched her this way, and maneuvered her that way and she almost knocked over the VERY EXPENSIVE LOOKING TV and the entire time Paula (I’m not even gonna say it again…) just kept looking at the last of us in line like she would burst into tears if she didn’t clear every last one of us out. I get the feeling she is every bit as nice as she appears on TV and if I ever hear differently, I think I may die of shock. Finally got to the front of the line and met the Queen of Southern Cooking herself…

To say I was on cloud nine would be the understatement of the century. But then….

..the bad naked happened.

Still with me? Stay, you want to hear this.

So I go up the escalator, and check my tweets only to find two bloggers I talk to on twitter a bunch have shown up, Church Punk Mom and her husband, Only Aman. I’m sitting there visiting with them and all of a sudden, Aman says, “Wow, is that lady taking her shirt off?” Now, normally, these words would not get a reaction out of me…or at least not a screeching one. However. The first night of blogher I heard there was a streaker at one of the parties. Apparently, this woman took her clothes off, calmy walked through the room and then went all the way up to the escalator while waving. From all accounts, it was not a good naked, it was a VERY BAD NAKED and boy was I pissed that I missed something that crazy. But here I was, right in the middle of it, so I started yelling, “IT’S HAPPENING!!! IT’S HAPPENING!!!” while running in circles which I think may have alarmed Church Punk and Aman but, you know, it’s part of my hazing ritual. Grabbed the iPhone and snapped this picture for you:

Now, if you haven’t taken me off your Google reader for this, Friday I will post just a ton of pictures of friends and good times…I may even say a few nice things along the way…just don’t tell anyone, okay?

Let’s call this: The One Where I Overpack And The Airline Tries To Turn Me Into A Professional Assasin By Losing My Luggage And Also Wherein I Meet The Craziest Woman At All Of BlogHer. (Long title with serious run on tendencies, but I like it so it stays.)

I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail about the luggage other than to tell you many profanities were uttered at O’Hare airport in the two hours it took them to find my bag, but take a look at this picture and you will understand just how deep the emotial distress was:

Thankfully my roommates, Jen from Sprite’s Keeper and Mary from Unmitigated knew what they were getting into with me and no one was too shocked when I opened up my suitcase and a thousand shiny stilettos came flying out all over the room. Also, upon arriving, Sprite’s Keeper and I were greeted with this lovely gift from Michele at It’s a Dogs Life and I can promise you I have never needed a glass of wine as much as I needed it then…

Now I know you want to know the dirt. And I’m going to give it to you over the next couple of days but it’s going to take a while to process it all. So I’ll share this one story with you for now where I met the craziest woman at BlogHer (and trust me when I tell you that was a very high honor to achieve with some stiff competition).

The first day I was sitting at a table with Mary from Unmitigated, Amy from OutdoorDogs, Jen Lancaster (and if I have to tell you from where, you really should not be here), Cassie Boorn and Mrs. Fussypants herself, Alli Worthingon. We are all sitting there having a great conversation when this woman who clearly had a high dose of the crazy going on walks up and sort of stares at us until we stop talking. To give you a visual, on her head appeared to be something that was a cross between a poodle and a really pissed off cockatoo. We all sort of blinky stared at her for a few moments until she spoke.

Crazy: Are you guys mommy bloggers?
All of Us: Yes. (Well, except Jen who obviously is not and I think was still trying to process her hair…)
Crazy: Do you guys make money?
All of Us: No. (Well, except Jen and once again if I have explain why she is the exception to the rule…you need to leave now.)
Crazy: Then why do you do it?
TSM: Um, because we enjoy it and we all got to be friends through it.
Crazy: Pausing for some thought here as she looks at her food…then: Well, I guess I’ll still sit with y’all.
All of Us: *blink blink*

So we go back to talking and trying to pretend like craziness is not sitting right there with us. (Hello, Uncomfortable…so glad you could join us.) A few minutes later, she fires up again.

Crazy: So you guys really don’t make any money?
All of Us: NO!!!
Crazy: Then why do you do it?
All of Us: *begin collective banging of heads on tables*
Crazy: Y’all must not be doing it right then.
Alli: Excuse me?
Crazy: I said..If you aren’t making any money you must not be doing it right.
Alli: Do you realize you are sitting at the table with Jen Lancaster who is a NYT Best Selling Author of four books?
Crazy: Yeah? Well she didn’t make any money off her blog though….

At which point, Jen quietly got up and excused herself while the rest of us sat there with our mouths hanging open. I cannot make this stuff up people. Bitch be crazy.

Come back soon and I’ll tell about how in 24 hours I managed to have encounters with Carson Kressley, Paula Deen, Mrs. Potato Head and a streaker which truly taught me the meaning of “bad naked”.

…and I have the pictures to prove it, you have been warned.

Recently I’ve heard rumblings about a new fashion trend you plan to unleash on the world…the “Panty Skirt”. Ok, I get it, these ARE NOT see through as it appears:

They are actually PRINTED SKIRTS that make it look like you are *ahem* showing off your “assets” (pun intended):

In general, Japan, I think these are a really bad idea but I really don’t get this one…what’s up with the scrunchy panties? That looks UNCOMFORTABLE:

(Side Note: Something like this actually happened to me once at a client lunch at the very beginning of my career when I was in my 20′s. Back then I didn’t realize more than one glass of wine at lunch was a really bad idea…and four was even worse. At some point, I got up to go to the bathroom and I had on one of those big foofy 80′s dresses? Well, it got hung up in my panty hose….because we wore those back then kiddos…and I walked all the way through the restaurant with my “assets” on display, and also I think dragging a strand of toilet paper. One of my prouder memories to be sure.)

Wait, Japan…where was I?

Oh yes, this skirt issue.

I’m going to have to demand that you keep this particular trend to yourself because I promise you, if I wake up one morning and see my daughter wearing one of these, you will have me to answer to.

…and trust me, you really don’t want that.

Yours,
TSM

PS: If you guys want a quick smile today, head over to CheerUpNation by clicking HERE. It’s Brian Papa’s new site and it is awesome! Check it out…and submit some pictures of your own kids too!

I found this gem today and plan to officially start my exercise regime tomorrow…

Now if someone could please make me understand what she is doing around the :31, I’d appreciate it.

On second thought, my children could possibly read your comments.

Item Number One: Tiki Pots and Torches

Reason? After a few of those adult beverages pictured above, this is the stuff that would haunt my dreams. Also…solar powered…added benefit that the eyes and mouth glow in the dark to guarantee your children have nightmares and wake you up after said adult beverages. I don’t need that kind of grief in my life. And those teeth? NO.

Item Number Two: Frog Vomit Dish

Reason: No appetite for frog vomit. ‘Nuff said.

Item Number Three: “Fence Art”

Reason: At first glance, I thought this was rapid growing Ivy. But no. This? Is genuine vinyl mesh made to cover your ugly fence…to make it uglier. We have an ugly fence. I don’t need help making it uglier, but thanks.

Item Number Four: Cherry Pitting Pooper Supreme

Reason? Is it just me or does this toothy little guy look like he is pooping cherry pits? Try selling that one to your fussy kids and report back to me. “Hey Kids! Watch the cherry pitter poop!” Go ahead, try it…I’m waiting.

Item Number Five: Kanye Glasses for the Middle Aged Visually Impaired Set.

Reason? Lauded as the way to teach your eyes to relax, these lovely shades can be worn while reading, on the computer, watching TV…but not while driving! (Um, duh?) It’s possible they may possibly correct your vision. Thanks but I’ll take blindness over looking like Kanye while chanting “That that don’t kill me…can only make me stronger…” Speaking of, if you do see me in this, go ahead and kill me. It will make you stronger, I promise. And popular.

And lastly, Item Number Six: Pee In Your Pants Panties

Reason? I could spend a lot of time on the fact that these are granny pants, which is just too easy. What you really need to know here is that these granny pants will hold five ounces of liquid. Really. While I’ve been known to snee myself (and if you haven’t read me for a long time…you may want to know about this personal problem of mine) I just cannot go there. You can even wear these all day as the magical panties will wick the liquid away from you for up to eight hours. EWWWWW.

This entire list? Oh. Hell. No.

Apparently, what is going on here is what went on with the famous leather pants that were all the rage on ebay in 2005. If you never read the sales description, click here now..it’s priceless.

ANYWAY.

This shirt has caused almost 400 people to post sarcastic reviews on Amazon and almost 6,000 people to read and review them. If you get a chance, go check it out, but until then, here is a sample:

“This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!).”

I had to know more about the men who would buy such a shirt so I looked into “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed…” just to get a better feel for the mindset going on with fans of that shirt because this is the way I spend my spare time. I’m going to tell you right now to swallow that coffee before going any further.

Done?

Okay good…because they also viewed these BLUE ZEBRA pants:

And because they would be wearing the ultra sexy Three Man Wolf Shirt along with the Blue Zebra pants, naturally the next thing they would look to purchase is this:

…I only wish I was making this up.

Have a great weekend y’all…and happy shopping!

The surgery went swimmingly. I pretty much slept for four days straight and then tried to go back to work on Monday. Tried…and FAILED. I fell asleep sitting up in my chair and threw in the towel. Apparently, I am not cut out for any type of prescription drug abuse because I quit taking the damn things Saturday and was still hung over from them on Monday.

My life as a hard core pharm party girl? Not so much.

Got back to work on Tuesday. Busted my butt to get caught up. Did not leave my chair or my house for a few reasons. First of all, I still had a slighty oompa loompa appearance going on….all roundish and short…and could not fit in my clothes. Secondly, well…I don’t know what the second reason is other than I am horrifically vain and you are just never gonna see me looking that bad.

Finally Wednesday, I had gone back to my normal size and was able to put on a pair of jeans to go out to lunch. Bad move. I spent an hour on my feet and when I got home ohmygodthepain. So back I went to the oompa loompa wardrobe until the next day when I went to the doctor for my post op follow up.

Get to the doctor, tell him proudly I was able to get into my jeans well in advance of the one week he said it would take and he was all, “ARE YOU CRAZY?” Apparently, I was not supposed to do that and my uterus (now known as the uterFUSS) did not like it one tiny little bit. I was told in no uncertain terms that jeans and high heels (gasp) were not to be a part of m wardrobe for yet another week. Okay, I can deal with that…sort of.

So my uterFUSS and I went back home and resumed the oompa loompa wardrobe and the endless sitting around, not being able to go on calls, not willing to go out in public. You would think that would be the end of it.

But no.

Now, I just have NO IDEA how this happened but sometime Thursday, I threw my back out. How this happened in my almost catatonic state is truly one of the great medical mysteries in life. This has never happened to me and I even had a bone scan at the doctors office the day before where they told my how strong my spine was. (Like I didn’t know that already. Pfft.) All I know is I woke up Friday morning with my back so cramped I could not get out of bed. I was stuck like a turtle who gets turned over on it’s shell and The Man had to hoist me out of bed. After I calmed the children down from the shriek heard round the world when I stood up, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

This is were the story takes an even nastier turn.

Look in the mirror, and I am covered in hives. Lips and eyes swollen, hunched over, I looked a bit like this….

Quasimoto? I feel your pain brother. My teeth looked a little bit better but not much because apparently I had slept with my mouth open all night as well.

Attractive, right?

This is not the first time the hives have taken over my life. I didn’t take a picture this time, but this is picture of me last year after an attack. Important to note here, this is two hours after getting back from the hospital where the attendant actually yelled, “Oh My Holy Hell!!!!” when I walked in. I took the high road told him to eff off and continued walking at which point, he slapped me down on a gurney before I could die and sue them. Apparently, they take the whole “hives” thing pretty seriously and I was class A scary.

Also? If any of y’all could petition People Magazine to include me in the “Most Beautiful Without Makeup” series, that would be great. No? Hmph.

Seriously…that picture is TWO HOURS after they injected me with some very potent stuff to make the swelling go down. I know that I look like Octomom collagen lips gone wrong, however, I do hope you will notice that even in my Quasimoto state, I had the forethought to put on red lipstick. Never let it be said that Stiletto is not vain.

Here’s the thing. I’m not allergic to anything. No one knows why this happens to me. Last time it lasted for SIX MONTHS. I think it means God is getting even with me for some past transgression but the medical community just does not buy that as a viable excuse. Go figure.

So anyway, there you have it, why I’ve been absent for an entire week. Hopefully, next week I will be a.) non oompa loompa b.) upright and c.) non Quasimoto.

Come back Monday or Tuesday for a very special rant on Dr. Laura.

…and now, I am off to skulk in my tiny corner of the bell tower for the rest of the weekend. Hope you all have a good one!