Parallel Universe

There are two worlds within this great nation of ours: the television world where, like my blogbud Farm Girl pointed out in her most recent blog, people like Horatio Crane can get away with say REALLY bad one-liners as long as they are wearing cool sunglasses and living in a metropolitan area surrounded by beaches and cabanas. And the real world, where we don't wear high heels with jogging suits and we still spell words with the vowels in them - no, I don't speak TXT MSG and I don't carry a dog in a purse. In fact, this past weekend at a family reunion I actually said the phrase "Do we have any toothpicks because I've got some barbecued coon stuck in my teeth..."
So here are some other major differences that I'd very much like to point out.

• There are rumblings that Wal-Mart is getting a bit uppity what with the new Martha Stewart line. I know some women who are talking about organizing an official protest against having to match their gum boots to their gardening gloves.
• Here in rural America, we don't have "Sex and the City." We have "Desperate Nookie in the Parking Lot." If you've been married for awhile you have intense arguments about what to watch on TV after the weather report.
• Some Hollywood starlets and harlots are taking these exercise classes taught by ex-strippers that teach them how to pole dance and twirl themselves around on a steel pole using their core muscles to help reduce fat or something like that. That would never fly here and the main reason is that we are the kind of people that make do with what we have and the splinter factor is just way too painful to even consider.
• The flea market factor. Let me explain: in metropolitan areas flea markets are campy, destination weekend trips. Here, flea markets are how we furnish entire houses, buy gifts for people we really don't like or buy gifts for people we truly love.

So are we missing out, out here in the sticks where restaurant food is limited to what can be wrapped in paper and shoved into your car through a drive thru window? Where our first thought when we hear the word "yoga" is either a probiotic dairy product or BooBoo Boy? Where we have made a verb out of the term "garage sale" as in "I'm getting up early Saturday morning to garage sale." I used to think, as I would pour over the Ikea catalog and dream of waking up to a sun-filled loft overlooking a skyscraper skyline, that yes, I was missing out on something, as undefineable and elusive as that something was. But now I know that I'm most likely completely wrong; that it's so much better to wake up to the sound of kiddos laughing as they wait for the school bus, and to look out my window and see the garden that needs weeding desperately, but instead I choose to plop down on my flea market sofa with my homemade coffee that is just plain old coffee from the coffee maker and enjoy five minutes of windchimes, dogs barking, a couple of cars passing by and laughter from the preschool playground just down the street that makes up the small town symphony in this non-metropolitan parallel universe.

One More Reason to Bomb Canada...

They are just there...Canadians to the North. Do they really do anything I mean other than run to our country for decent healthcare and let us shoot movies up there and supply us with tasty bacon? Once upon a time when my tastes were questionable, I watched South Park and there was a whole song about the horrors of our friend to the north called "Blame Canada." Now, there is a reason.
A journalist, and I use that word loosely, has written a scathing diatribe aimed at Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Heather Mallick, who looks like the kind of woman who smells like earwax and wears pantyhose in the summer with sandals, has decided to stick her upturned nose where it doesn't belong...in matters of democracy. Here is what the frigid prune has written about Palin, her supporters and America in general:

In the CBC story, Mallick wrote that John McCain’s running mate “added nothing to the ticket that the Republicans didn’t already have sewn up, the white trash vote.”
She proceeded to write that the Alaska governor “has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favored by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression.”
Mallick also blasted Alaska as Canada’s ugly stepchild.
“We love our own north to the point of covering our eyes and humming as it melts … but Alaska is different from our north,” she wrote. “We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape.
“Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.”

Does this bother anyone but me? First of all, she doesn't like Sarah Palin because she's pretty? I don't think she looks like a porn star...I don't know that many porn stars, but nowhere near Sarah Palin have I ever seen a horny copier technician or a spicy pizza man ready to deliver if you know what I mean and I think that you do...
Secondly, white trash? White trash? Really? I'm no expert, but I've never seen Sarah Palin wearing a halter top over a bra; I've never seen her stuff a half-eaten fish sandwich in her purse in hopes of getting lucky at a kegger in a cornfield; I've never read any documentation concerning Palin being hauled into court because stolen vehicles were found in her front yard after the city maintenance crew had to come and mow it for her because she refused to do so. So attaching this well-educated, well-spoken and (God forbid) attractive woman to those of us who truly understand and revere white-trash culture is in many ways just an example of how far north Canada is and how out of touch with redneck livin' they have become.
Third, is anyone else sick of Sarah Palin being attacked simply because of her vagina? No one went after Bill Clinton because of his penis and thanks to Monica Lewinski and her blue dress, we all know he has one. Troopergate, porn star, puffy lips...when will it end? Are we not a more advanced society than this? I mean we are a society that does amazing things, wonderful things like open heart surgery, Habitat for Humanity and philly cheese steak Hot Pockets. Is it so far out of our grasp to show a little decorum, a little grace, a little intelligence?
And finally, like any good journalist, I'm going to introduce some facts into this story to support my point of view:
Imagine working for a company that has a little more than 300 employees and has the following statistics:
30 have been accused of spousal abuse
9 have been arrested for fraud
14 have been accused of writing bad cheques
95 have directly or indirectly bankrupted businesses
4 have done time for assault
55 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
12 have been arrested on drug related charges
4 have been arrested for shoplifting
16 are currently defendants in lawsuits
62 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year-
Can you guess which organization this is?-It is the 301 MP's in the Canadian Parliament. The same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws designed to keep Canadians safe and progressive.

Pretty interesting, eh? Sarah Palin, compared to the cream of the crop of Canadian politics, well to borrow a term from our friends to the north...she's a beaut, eh?

Blatant Snake Sex II: Revenge of the Screaming, Chunky White Chick

So for those of you who are on the edge of your seat concerning the snake orgy and the putting an end to thereof, I have little to nothing to report.
I was asked to remove myself from the sidewalk, preferably before the local preschool let out and parents started arriving to pick up their children thus forever sealing my fate as "crazy old Mrs. Williams". Now, people are saying that the snakes were a hallucination and my husband is certain that I have in fact lost my entire mind. They are saying these things because the stupid, horny little reptiles did not make an appearance today, at all. Seriously. I kept looking for them, at one point I contemplated trying to lure them out which brought me to the realization that I have no idea how to lure a snake. What does one do to LURE a snake? What makes them tick, what makes them smile, what makes them feel self-actualized and whole?
I most assuredly had one answer: BLATANT SUNNY SNAKE SEX. There was a moment when I contemplated a crime scene reconstruction that involved cooked spaghetti noodles, black paint, and fishing line. But that was way too much work and it was time for Cold Case Files...

Blatant Snake Sex

Let's talk about snake fornication. It's not something that I would normally bring up if, yesterday when I walked out of my house, I had not been confronted with a big, wiggly, writhing ball of about 12 snakes getting it on right on my front stoop! Sure, I know now that they were just run-of-the-mill garter snakes and what they were doing was perfectly natural, even acceptable if you're an extra in the cast of an Indiana Jones movie.
What I cannot deal with is the fact that THERE WERE A DOZEN SNAKES GETTIN' THEIR COOKIES RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!. Two things: first, there were 12 of them which means there are probably, in actuality more under my house. Second, they were having blatant sunny snake sex which means there are going to be more in the future. This is a full-blown situation - we are talking about unprotected snake sex. Did I mention that they are SNAKES?!?
So I called Animal Control and explained to them my concerns which are, to reiterate: Snake fornication in front of my house and snake fornication in front of my house. They weren't as sympathetic as I had hoped. To me, this is a full-0n SWAT situation. Break out the helicopters, man the battling rams and get a sniper on my neighbors roof! They were just a bit indifferent. So I took matters into my own hands.
Armed with a folding lawn chair, a cooler full of Diet Dr. Pepper, and a fabulous pair of gum boots that are both stylish and function, I purloined my husbands automatic UZI pellet gun (15 rounds per second) I set up shop on my sidewalk with a birdseye view of The Love Shack.
Come to find out, it's against the law to shoot BB guns inside the city limits. Also, snakes are smart. I didn't see so much as a little fork tongue. It's like they knew. They KNEW that I was going to put an end to their open-air love fest and they chose to stay undercover. Also, according to the Animal Control officer who showed up on my doorstep WITHOUT backup, killing the snakes is animal cruelty and he assured me that they would soon move on to somewhere they could get ground cover and have a water supply for winter.
But I haven't given up. I know they're under there plotting, watching snake porn, getting themselves worked up into a frenzy in preparation for a little afternoon delight right in front of my Happy Harvest Scarecrows. But they don't know who they're dealing with...