Here's why I haven't posted in two weeks:

Broken Picture Telephone

...and a very busy time last weekend, when I was preparing (cleaning, decluttering, shopping, buying a light fixture at the very last minute, making a lasagna) for CJ's birthday potluck on Saturday. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I bought him an ice cream cake and decorated it with portraits of our three cats?



It was actually pretty magical, since the day before at work, Dunkin' Donuts sent the office a press kit that included tubes of gel icing in brown, orange, pink, and white. So I only had to go buy black. Thanks, DD! I had visions of cat-headed grandeur in my head, but when I finally started working on the actual gel artistry, I realized how incredibly impossible this goop is to work with. Thus, the cake above, which still got a lot of compliments (though I expect most people were just being polite).

Then CJ's cool friend from Boston stayed the night, so of course we had to go to Green Street and get eggs benedict, then since we were right on Smith campus, we had to walk over to the botanical gardens and take in the bulb show. Then it was time for a Crafternoon (trademarked by me) with some ladies from work. And we really get into making stuff, so I was there pretty much until dinner time. Oh, also, I brought a small "extra" lasagna to the crafternoon, and ate some of it there, along with some cheese and a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. For dinner I had yet more lasagna, but I did have a small side salad too. Because I like to eat healthy.

And then last night I had a 3-hour meeting of the association I am the chairwoman of, and it was somewhat tense and annoying. And here it is, today, and in 20 minutes I am going to watch the new episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, because I DESERVE it, people.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

I kind of love Kathy Griffin. Not many people know this, but I am a regular listener of a couple of hilarious, vulgar, NSFW and very, very gay podcasts (PNS Explosion and Daily Purge, can I get a what-what!). And Kathy fits right in to that genre. Yes, she's had too much plastic surgery, but there's something about her that totally charms me. So I was thrilled to read about her acceptance speech for the Emmy she just won:

In her speech, Griffin said that "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."

She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, "This award is my god now!"

Predictably, the Catholic League of Eternal Disapproval or whatever the hell it's called has condemned the speech, and now they're going to edit the "bad" parts out of the telecast. Lame.

After a short period of rallying, by television now appears to have turned the darkened corner towards actual tube-death. On Saturday I decided to turn the TV on after a couple of hours of listening to my iPod on shuffle (the best part: "Johnny Thunder" [Kinks] and "Hold Back the Rain" [um, yes: Duran Duran] coming on during a brief thunderstorm) and I couldn't get the picture to show up for more than a few seconds. I tried slapping and hitting it in various spots and with varying degrees of strength, but it was futile. I only wanted it to be on as background while I did a mindless sewing project, so I ended up listening to a Hallmark Original Movie starring Shelley Long and Patrick Duffy. I lasted a half-hour. Still, the experience didn't make me loathe myself and everyone else, like watching "Rock of Love" (a.k.a. "Strippers Fighting," thanks Scott) does. I have a problem with that show. It's a car crash from which I can't look away. I need a personalized V-Chip that blocks that show from my life — plus "Flavor of Love," "Parental Control," "Cheaters," and "Intervention."

I might need to add that new show about the lobster boats... I watched one episode recently, and it started off with an airlift rescue of a cameraman who went into shock after being violently seasick for three days. They kept showing the guy, looking pale and awful and semi-conscious, unable to swallow a sip of water as he lolled on the bed in the cabin of a pitching, rolling boat. I have a surfeit of empathy, so just typing that is making me feel like I need several Bonine and a nap somewhere very very still. Even while I watched it I was thinking, "Shit. More raw material for my nightmares." And yet, I had to see the guy get rescued and healthy again. At least he made it out of there ok... Which is more I can say about the poor "Rock of Love" girls.