I Could Have SWORN Gray's Anatomy was Cancelled

I love the Fall Television Season. I love seeing the return of my favorite television shows. I love discovering new shows. I love ridiculing those 'highly acclaimed and long awaited' shows that turn out to be total suck-fests.

I do not love Gray's Anatomy.

In the spirit of full disclosure I must say – I have NEVER watched an entire episode of Gray's Anatomy. And I was pretty certain the show had been CANCELLED last season. I could have sworn the entire cast died in a firey ER shoot out last season. (this is solely based on seeing previews between the shows I do watch.)

But it seems that those poor nurses and doctors that work at Gray's Anatomy Hospital are destined to DIE in a fiery helicopter crash. Wow. Way to really shorten the season. Killing off the entire cast on the first show of the new season? Genius. Now maybe the network will have room for some really good programming.

I am fully aware that that last sentence will completely piss off a HUGE section of the American Television Demographic. But, I am here to tell you, as a 25+ year veteran of healthcare, I have never seen an entire staff granted time off TOGETHER. EVER. Plus, we were never dispatched all together in a helicopter for any reason. (Although I really thought the Jimmy Buffett concert would be reason enough.)

We did have a car drive INTO our Emergency Department once and I personally had a killer Pimp attempt to break through the automatic doors. But NEVER were we granted time off TOGETHER to go cruising around in a helicopter.

Never.

ever...

Its Not You It's The Scanner

I took Wednesday off to embark on my first official Blogging adventure. I intended to take part in the phenomenon known as Me-Ality – a body scanner which figures your size in relation to retail stores/brand sizing.

Why, you might ask, would a rational woman, years beyond caring what size she wears, subject herself to this?

First of all – LOL! Who are we kidding. I don't care how much MORE magazine touts the wonder that is the middle age woman. I will always, in a tiny part of my brain, cringe if the jeans I try on are above a certain number and I will ALWAYS do a happy dance when that number falls below the number I am at right now.

And second of all – there is no second. I have a history of stuffing myself into vertical booths. (This would be the Spray Tan Incident. Or, as my daughter likes to call it – The Day Mom Stuck Me in a Gas Chamber.)

Today was about sharing a potentially humiliating experience with my BFF. We steeled ourselves with a promise of pumpkin spice latte and walked determinedly towards the poor young woman holding a clipboard next to the space station scanner tube. I could almost hear her thoughts: please don't let them stop here. There is not enough vodka tonic at Fridays to get their pitiful pleas of past shopping trips to 5-7-9 out of my head."

Did I mention that the scanner sits IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MALL?

Before we could even say "Hello, we would like to be publicly humiliated" the poor clerk holds her clipboard up like a shield and says, "I'm sorry. The scanner is down for the day. The entire day."

Thus avoiding the following conversation:

Me: "I am sure the machine has to be wrong. Please put Forever 21 into your search engine again."

Clerk: "Ma'am, it clearly says your best bet for skinny jeans is Bob's Big Girls or perhaps you would like to explore MiddleAgeMommas. Either way, the machine has spoken. The Machine Has Spoken. It has."

Frankly, I think we were all a little relieved.

(I fully intend to try the scanner as the company actually emails you the results and your size equivalent to a huge number of stores which would save me a huge amount of time NOT trying on clothes and thus needing to return them. For anyone interested the company info follows:

http://www.me-ality.com/about

PS-The Spray Tan Incident is another story. Which I will post one day when I am sure the Spray Tan People won't come after me.

Maybe its a Good Thing Kerouac Doesn't Know....

I just downloaded 'On The Road' by Jack Kerouac to read on my Ipod while commuting back and forth to my job.

This is so wrong on so many levels I think they may have to invent a couple just to satisfy the wrongness.

Wait – did I mention that I decided to finally read this book while reading a fashion article in VOGUE loosely based on the styles that the characters would probably have worn? Oh, and it sits on the Kindle bookshelf next to the second installment of 50 Shades of Grey.

That ought to do it.

Thoughts from Monday

My day job finds me in the middle of a very urban area at a huge university affiliated healthcare facility. You never know who or what you might see or hear. In the center of our quad is a huge basin  reflecting pool.
Today some event is being set up around the pool and Latin Music is serenading me as I stare into the pool and reflect on the injustice of being stuck on the Coast of Illinois when I could be listening to this music live on a beach...

Sorry, no pictures it is just too sad.

Special Bonus Saturday Installment!

Special Bonus Saturday Installment!

I spent yesterday in the car driving to Cornfield, IL to pick up child #2 from College. I love driving through central Illinois. It is where I grew up and I feel a deep affection for the endless rows of cornstalks and dilapidated barns. You can see for miles as you drive down the interstate. Tiny farms dot the landscape and a storm always seems to be brewing off to the West casting just the right amount of Religious Calendar Sun Rays over the flat land.

There is an endless supply of kitsch on this stretch of road including but not limited to a gigantic catsup bottle, Tractor Museum, a 'real' Indian trading post, a restaurant that boasts MILE HIGH pie- which actually looks like MILE HIGH meringue on a an average size pie and travel lodge with an 'arch' that IS NOT REALLY A TRUE ARCH (this detail is pointed out to me by my family every time we pass it). (Every time.) But one of my absolute favorites is the Paul Simon Freeway sign.

Paul Simon was a congressman from the great state of Illinois. He wore a bow tie. Always. And once he appeared on Saturday Night Live with the other Paul Simon because he felt there was some confusion over who was hosting. Now THAT is an awesome politician.

Good thing he didn't wear a dickie. (If you look closely it appears there are bullet holes in the bow tie. They are actually polka dots. As per the original...)

Your Face is a Work of Art

Since when did it become necessary for women to wear PRIMER under their makeup?
It's bad enough that regular makeup is called Foundation, and now PRIMER?
Listen up people: I am a WOMAN not a piece of DRYWALL!
...although I could probably use some moisturizer, so I can sort of see the cause of the confusion.

(this lunchtime rant brought to you by Sephora* and MORE magazine* the magazine for women who refuse to subscribe to Better Homes and Garden*.)

*all unpaid - der.

Never Surrender Your Sunglasses...at Night

Watched "About Last Night"...last night. It is one of those wonderful Big 80's movies, a time capsule if you will, of all that was the 1980's. The movie revolves around Debbie (played by Demi Moore) and Danny (Rob Lowe) and their rocky love vs sex relationship. The film holds all that I hold dear about that New Wave Era.

It has gigantic sweaters – prints so large you look like wallpaper and sizes so large that Debbie and Danny could have moved all her stuff into her sweater and still had room for his stuffed Chicago Bear. And gigantic hair. Elizabeth Perkins, as Debbie's best friend, rocked the poodle-do while snapping scathing comments at Danny and his friend play by...

James Belushi, he went by James then – not Jim, was the semi-drunk side-kick. All good 1980's movies co-starred at least on Belushi, or Murray or that Andrew McSomthing guy. You remember him. He was the guy who dated a mannequin and that other 80's chick fried green tomatos.

Debbie was an artist, her friend a kindergarten teacher. Danny and his bud were sales guys in the same warehouse in which Kevin Bacon decided to be a writer later in the 80's. It must have been an inspiring warehouse. Danny decided to follow his dream there as well. They all hang out at the neighborhood bar, drinking pink wine. ( I am pretty sure John Hughes invented pink wine JUST for the 80's.) And they eat peanuts from those red baskets and throw the shells on the floor of the bar where the bartender cheerfully buys them drinks.

On dates the couple goes to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, stand around outside Wrigley Field throwing each others hats into the air and of course, tour the art museum in Chicago. Did I mention the movie is set in Chicago? (I am pretty sure John Hughes also invented Chicago just for these movies.)

I don't really know why I love this movie. It drives me crazy that the couple central to the story are pretty flat, the angstyness is pretty contrived and the comic relief is painful. But I do love it. Maybe its because I wore most of the clothes or maybe because I was at the beginning of that BIG relationship myself.

But my love of the movie is most likely based on that feeling of hopefulness and endless possibility brought on by ripping the sleeves off your t-shirt, wrapping a red bandana around your head and cranking up your Corey Hart soundtrack – the Official Soundtrack Singer of the Big 80s.

Talking to one of the Ninja Turtles while rocking my own poodle-do in my Radical khaki jumpsuit. I always wore my sunglasses at night.