When Sitcoms Were Funny
Husband and I have recently started watching Barney Miller on "retro night" on WGN. And it's still hilarious.

It all works, the great writing, the impeccable comic timing, the acting and the quirky characters. But it does give rise to the question of when did sitcoms stop being funny. When was the last time you laughed out loud at a modern sitcom?

We watched three episodes tonight and each had at last one huge laugh. And often at the base of it was racial humor. It wasn't racist -- just racial. Something else which has gone by the wayside. I didn't find any of these jokes offensive, jut observational. Like one witness saying "hey the colored guy saw the whole thing and Japanese guy saying I'm colored, he's just black, everyone else is blank." The dead-pan delivery made it funny, but also anachronistic. People don't make jokes based upon skin color ever more. Which is probably for the good. But in some ways political correctness has made humor less biting.

There's no point to this, just rambling at nearly 3 am.

Blues, blues, blues
The annual KZSU Blues Marathon is on the calendar. 30 hours, starting at midnight the night of Christmas and running all day the 26th and into the 17th. As usual, I'll be on the air.

But it looks like I'm on the air for a 12-hour slot, from noon to midnight on the 26th. Our blues director wants me to do a world blues show, a "he said, she said" tag-team show with Husband where he plays all those "she's a cold hearted bitch" songs and I reply with "he's a no good mean mistreater." Then I'll be doing a solo show of what I like to call "bathosphere blues" the blues that are deep down, low down, down and dirty. Then Husband will do a jump blues show. After which, we will both be exhausted.

I always look forward to the Blues Marathon. I really love playing the blues, especially the classic artists: Howlin' Wolf, R.L. Burnside, B.B. King, Lightnin' Hopkins, give me a guitar and a sad story and I'm set. And what better day to play the blues than the day after Christmas, when you have to go on with life knowing you didn't get a pony from Santa.

Photo of the day: Return of the Tree

Well I made it almost an entire year with my photo of the day. Then I got sick, got sicker, got better but still lethargic, then gave up all hope of ever being well again and retired to my fainting couch to have a moan.

I guess I'm better now.

You'll Love This Crap!
The phrase "makes a great gift" in a TV ad marks the guarantee of something that you would never give nor, most emphatically, would you want to receive.

In the past week I have been told that the following makes a great gift:
- A Spongebob Squarepants Chia Pet
- The Clapper (They still make them?)
- An edible arrangement. (A fruit centerpiece that looks like flowers. Oh good, I want fruit that was cut up two days ago and has been sitting on a table for 4 hours.)
- Windshield wipers. (No. Really. Personally I think it marks grounds for divorce if your spouse gives you windshield wipers for Christmas.)
- A Snuggie. (Now don't get me wrong. I know people who own them. But really? Giving one as a gift?)

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum are the Acura commercials. Who gives a new car as a present and can I get this person to adopt me? The other pressing question on these Acura ads is where would you go to get a car-sized bow? Seriously, I've always wondered. There is always a big-assed red bow on the car, sitting beautifully in the driveway of a gorgeous house. (These people have WAY too much money.) I've been shopping for Christmas wrap recently, I didn't see any car-sized bows. Does Acura sell them? Does it come free if you buy a car in December?

The other day I wrapped presents in order to get my gift mailing done early. And, as I sat amid the books and CDs, sweaters and DVDs I thought to myself what a boring gift-giver I am. Not only is no one, not even Husband -- who deserves it, getting a brand new car with a big red bow, but nobody is getting a clay pot shaped like a cartoon character from which you can grow vaguely creepy mystery grass.

My family is so unlucky.

News of the Random
For some reason, this story just made me shake my head. This jerk showed up at a British Remembrance Day parade with a huge and impossible chest full of medals. Experts have looked at the medals, but it doesn't take anything more than eyes to tell this guy is a fake.

I just don't get people who pretend to be military heroes, and there are a lot of such folks out there. But this guy takes the cake. I mean if you wanted to march in the parade and make people thing you were an actual veteran, wouldn't it have made more sense to try and actually carry it off? Pick one or two medals that make sense and blend in. Don't put on so many medals that everyone who sees you is bound to think "this lunatic is an impostor." Did he actually think nobody would question him?

Meanwhile, Back at Target
With me being an unproductive member of society, we're trying to do Christmas on the cheap this year. (By "we" I mean me because I do all the shopping for my family and Husband's family and he just shops for me). I finished up today at that bastion of good taste, Target.

I started Christmas shopping last summer. I always try to be done by Thanksgiving, but this year I started earlier to spread out the Visa bill in less terrifying chunks. We have 12 people to get gifts for, not counting each other, so it can add up unless you shop carefully.

At Target today I bought the last of the gifts (two sweaters and a purse) and then when to the Christmas aisle for gift wrap. They had some quite nice paper, actually, but one weird display of paper obviously meant for children. It had cartoon and movie characters on it. Most of it was typical, but cute. Piglet hanging a wreath on Pooh's door. Santa Mickey giving a bone to a grateful Pluto. And, of course, that most Christmas of all movies -- Star Wars. Yeah, they had paper with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker (complete with light saber) and the gang pictured as animated characters on red and green squares. Because, you know, nothing says Christmas quite like an intergalactic war.

Also seen and/or overheard at Target:

- A woman with three kids under the age of 5 who is pregnant again. Have these people never heard of birth control?
- A woman telling her boyfriend, "Target is fine for your mom but I expect something from Nordstrom."
- A man with a shopping cart with 3 24-packs of toilet paper and a 25-pound tub of cat litter. Apparently no live thing in his house does anything other than go to the bathroom.
- Two hip-hop wannabes with pants around their thighs buying the Josh Groban Christmas CD
- A Target employee in the bedding section asked what the difference was between "King" and "California King". Her reply: "They're the same, it's just these sheets are only available in California."
- A man who must have weighed 300 pounds wearing a pink sweatshirt with a pony on it in glitter and a 49er cap.
- The woman who ate an entire bag of chips in the store. And not one of those lunch-sized bags. A full-sized bag of Ruffles. I saw when she opened them and began munching and when I saw her in line the bag was empty. She paid for it and asked the clerk to throw the empty bag away.
- A man talking on his cell phone in the menswear section "Is Bob a large or an extra large? He's an extra-extra large? Got I can't believe my sister found someone fatter than she is!"

Ah....life on the A-list.

Anticipating Trauma
Sigh....it's time for Annual Trauma Day. Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) has an appointment on Monday for her annual physical and shots.

And I'm already a nervous wreck because the event will involve Cipher's nemesis The Carrier. Cipher is deadly afraid of the carrier. She knows when she sees it that bad is about to happen. She is about to be snatched from her happy home, put into a cage, thrust into a huge car and then taken to a cold steel table where a strange man will put a thermometer up her butt.

Can't say I blame her for being terrified of the whole process.

She'll handle it fairly well -- better than I, in fact. And once she gets home and has her favorite tuna for dinner she'll settle down and be fine. For but the hour and a half the whole thing takes she's a very uncertain and unhappy kitty and I feel like I'm sending my baby off to war.

Yeah, I'm a crazy cat lady.

The Look
One of the reasons why I think I have the best-paying "job" in the world is "the look."

There is a look that you get from animals (if you're very lucky) of absolute trust. It's this look in their eyes that says "I know you will never hurt me." I get it from Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) right before she falls asleep with her nose touching mine. It says to me that she's willing to completely unguarded around me because she knows that she's safe.

I get it from certain cats at the shelter when they curl into my lap and settle in for a good snuggle. These cats barely know me and yet they are trusting enough to believe that they are in no danger from me. The big high is when you eventually get it from a cat that you've had troubles with. The shy cats or the aggressive ones. The ones that for the first 10 visits hid under the chair or hissed whenever you approached. But with the love and patience of the volunteers, they slowly begin to relax and get used to the attention. They don't hide in the corner. They don't try to use your hand as a chew toy. They come closer, give out with a rusty purr, and rub their cheeks against your hand.

And then, if you're very, very lucky, you one day get "the look." And that makes all the scratches and all the hard work worth it.

I love "the look."

Thanksgiving Update
For those of my friends who know how truly white trash my family is, and how traumatic holidays can be, I give you this year's highlights of hell:

- How is it possible to screw up munchies? Stale crackers and tasteless cheese are the key.
- Much drinking of cheap jug wine. One sister got so hammered she lost all sense of personal space, got hiccups while trying to tell a story and ended up sounding like a comedy routine from the 70's with the cheesy drunk. At this point my mother got off the line of the night by turning to her and asking "how much wine have you had???"
- Husband's ass got grabbed. By one of my sisters.
- He also got a tit-flash from the other sister. He is currently lying down with a cold compress.
- My family making a big deal out of the fact the pumpkin bisque (which I made my request) was called "bisque". Oooh...it's not soup, it's bisque! Then it was pretty much ruined by the fact that it was dished into bowls and left to sit on the table for about 7 minutes while drunk sister dished up the mashed potatoes. Because soup and mashed potatoes must be served together. So we had cold soup and then we had cold mashed potatoes.
- Actually, everything was cold. Potatoes. Veggies. Corn casserole. Gravy.
- We're the only family in the US that doesn't have pie on Thanksgiving. I've been jonesing for apple pie since Finny took pictures of her orgasmic-looking pie. And what did we have for dessert? Chocolate-covered cereal lumps.

And how was your holiday?

Where Have I Been?
Sick.

I've had flu for going on a year now. Well, three weeks, anyway. Yes, I went to the doctor. No, it's not swine flu. I've had two round of antibiotics and I'm heartily sick of being sick.

The most annoying thing about this particularly hearty dose of flu is that it has rendered me completely inert. I don't want to do anything but sleep. I've missed cat duty. I've stopped photo of the day. I'm so behind on music reviewing that my stack of CDs to be screened is taller than I.

I feel slightly better today and am determined to go back to cat regular cat duty because I miss the litter critters so much.

But there's been one good thing about being sick. It's made me all gooshy about my friends.

I can't really explain it -- maybe it's because I've had a lot of time to think lately -- but I can't believe how lucky I am when it comes to my friends. The Lurker, the Foreigner, Mama D, Susan, the Belle of Belfast City, Finny (I hope I'm not leaving anyone out -- my brain is still not working well) anyway, they are the most amazing women. Each and every one is brilliant, funny, generous, kind, caring, creative, wicked, sexy, and inspiring.

Thank you, friends, for being part of my life. I love you.

Photo of the day: Dance of the Scary Tres

Kind spooky on gray day;

Photo of the day: THe Power of Cute

I gotta get out and take more photos.

Photo of the day: Just Because

Because I'm still getting over being sick and haven't had a chance to take photos lately.

Photo of the day: Making Me Want a Nap

She does it to me every time.

Photo of the day: When it Doubt Lock in In

Because these trees are at high risk of escape.

Photo of the day: The Door Was Open But Nobody Was Home

Not a creature was stirring. Not even a gopher. Or ground squirrel. Rabbit? Snake? Mexican Poison Death Beetle?

Photo of the day: On the Wing

Whee!

Photo of the day: Waiting for the Rain

If I do a little dance, will it come?

Photo of the day: Still Life with Batteries

And unopened mail.

Photo of the day: For All Your Miniature and Subminiature Phone Needs

And you thought I wasn't going to get you anything for Christmas.