What could be sillier than Adam Ant?

How about when the secret toy surprise is the brass ring?

From the New York Times.

About Dick Cavett: The host of “The Dick Cavett Show” — which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on public television from 1977 to 1982 — Dick Cavett is also the coauthor of two books, “Cavett” (1974) and “Eye on Cavett” (1983). He has appeared on Broadway in “Otherwise Engaged” “Into the Woods” and as narrator in “The Rocky Horror Show,” and has made guest appearances in movies and on TV shows including “Forrest Gump” and “The Simpsons.” Mr. Cavett lives in New York City and Montauk, N.Y.

Apropos of nothing, I would totally pay anything to hear Dick Cavett shout, “HE WAS A LOW-DOWN, CHEAP LITTLE PUNK.”

My cousin Sandy’s whirlwind wedding is midday Saturday. Three members of my horrified family have called and asked the same ominous question.

Terrified relatives: What are you wearing?

It didn’t sound dirty when they said it, either. I’ve said all along I’ll wear emerald satin pajamas because I am an uncaring bitch but also because I have the shoes and pizzazz to carry it off. Two days ago, as temperatures sank, I started feeling a bit more tropical. Though I wouldn’t go as far as Carmen Miranda’s fruit turban for an afternoon wedding, I’m going to try on every samba-related halter dress I can find tonight. Perhaps because I hate trying on clothing and dislike mediocre mall shopping in general, this dress on Katy Perry fills me with glee.

I’ve done meaner things to bridemaids.

You will be pleased to hear I scoured Sandy’s registry at Target over a week ago for wedding gifts from Pete and me. Pete took one look at the list and waved a white hanky. Then he muttered something about plumbing and skulked around the basement tool bench for an hour, leaving me to assemble something like a gift to be delivered wherever Sandy lives now. I don’t know where. It starts with a U. Anyhow, I picked out a sewing kit, a waterproof mattress pad and weights. The shipping charges were hilarious, because shipping weights is heavy, if you didn’t know, so when I got to filling out the online gift card, I was, let’s admit it, somewhat peeved – but still anxious to be helpful:

Happy Wedding! This collection of items is usually only found in an evidence locker. Don’t get caught!

I hope they have their own rubber gloves.

Left to my own devices, I eat a really wide variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, meats, fishes, fowls and grains, often all at once, explaining my overwideness and undertallitude. Pete’s had a few health issues along the way that somewhat limit his diet. He can’t eat seeds or nuts, white flour is his mortal enemy and most dairy makes him nervous; on top of that, he won’t touch eggplant and though he likes the flavor of mushrooms their texture makes him squirmy. I personally find eggplant smooth to the touch and delicious; mushrooms are downright sexy. More for me!

Last time we made the pilgrimage to Virginia, Daria brought with her a quinoa salad she picked up at her gym’s juice bar. All of my gyms had uneven bars, so I’m not up on spa cuisine but quinoa I learned about on PBS. Her salad had yummy golden raisins and almonds and a light, slightly sweet dressing. It was tasty, but I wanted cashews, mushrooms and dried cranberries. And chicken paprikash, for dessert.

One day, I was exercising with a friend and babbling about being lightheaded, not to mention fatigued. You’re right, I should switch to decaf, but suddenly I realized I’d been eating stupidly, despite the fantastic variety of foods. Somehow, I’d lost sight of the fact that I am so anemic on good days doctors wonder why I remain conscious. Thus, I’ve been on a tear with quinoa boiled in good stock or broth and lots of herbs and greens sauteed with olive oil and garlic, with the whole mess sprinkled with lemon or lime juice. Different greens have different nutritional values, but most have good, solid amounts of iron, which is great. Iron can also be binding on the intestines, thus the quinoa. But you could saute cardboard in olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, sprinkle it with lemon juice, and you’d be glad to eat it.

On the other hand, I’m a little hard pressed to explain the 10 boxes of creamed spinach neatly lined up in my freezer except to say spinach makes me stronger than Bluto and I had a coupon.

The Sheheyanu:

Finally, let me share with you the one last blessing for this morning, the sheheyanu. We bless God who has kept us alive, who has sustained us and who has enabled us to reach this season.

I had begun to think recently that these three terms: keeping us alive, sustaining us and enabling us to reach this season speak of the three ages of human beings, First, we are children awe-struck by the world and grateful for being alive. Then, we are middle aged adults struggling to remain stable within the direction we have set for ourselves thankful for being sustained. Finally, we are elderly individuals grateful for just reaching a new day.

That’s a nice interpretation. But, I have been inspired by words I heard this year to look at it differently. Our lives need to be a combination of all of those every day. We must never give up the thrill of being alive, always seek to find our direction and be grateful at the end of each day, knowing we have navigated the dangers of life successfully.

I credit this understanding of the Sheheyanu to a quotation I heard from a former astronaut, Pinky Nelson, commenting on flying the space shuttle after the tragedy of the Columbia.

He said: “You really have three things going on at once. There’s the professional astronaut that’s cool and calm and watching the instruments. There’s the little kid who’s got a ticket to Disneyland is having the ride of a lifetime. And there’s the older person looking over your shoulder trying to take it all in. You know if you’re not scared during a shuttle launch, then you don’t appreciate what’s going on.”

If we’re not scared during life, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we don’t feel like a kid in Disneyland each and every day, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And if we’re not watching every step of the way trying to stay in control, we don’t appreciate what’s going on. And the Sheheyanu reminds us that we should acknowledge the deep enjoyment of life, the living of life with meaning and the acceptance and overcoming of our fears at every age of our lives.

Welcome to our new lives, to this new day.

Okay. Okay. Okay: we’re sitting in the car on the way home and I burst out laughing.

Tata: Omigod, I forgot to tell you something.
Pete: You like my rugged good looks?
Tata: Pffft! Like I shut up about that. Remember I took a shower for about a year before we went out?
Pete: I remember.
Tata: And remember that I’ve been glum about my hair for weeks?
Pete: How could I forget?
Tata: And I’ve been putting my hair up in a ponytail to avoid dealing with it?
Pete: I’m still snickering. I mean, sure.
Tata: And since I got sick I’ve been complaining I could smell fever on my scalp?
Pete: Hoo boy, yes.
Tata: And you know how we bulk shop at Costco and use giant bottles of smelly goo?
Pete: Indeed I do!
Tata: Well, I was in the shower before and I washed my hair, and I was really frustrated because I couldn’t get the shampoo to lather, which I thought was because my scalp had suddenly become oily or something. So I washed my hair a second time and still no lather and I was just like, “What?” So finally I turned the bottle around and if you can believe it, I have been washing my hair for – like – six weeks with conditioner.

And then, when I expected him to drive off the road in stupefaction at my antics, Pete said the most extraordinary thing.

Pete: I know.

What?

Tata: What?
Pete: I was looking through the bottles on the shelves in the bathtub. There’s this stuff, that stuff, some other stuff and I said, “What’s she washing with?”
Tata: And you didn’t say anything?
Pete: Nooooooo. You’re mysterious.
Tata: I’m not mysterious, I’m – like – stupid.

Don’t panic! I’ve washed my long, luxurious blond hair, glazed it, conditioned it and come clean about this episode with every last one of my female co-workers, and at the end of the story, when they’re gasping at my ability to move about in society without a keeper, I can see they are mentally reviewing the products in their bathrooms.

Speaking of review, let’s review this new picture of Panky with pumpkins.

Man, he’s cute.

Creamy, chewy Christ on a cracker! Grab a Kleenex and clutching pearls, Poor Impulsives!

Heavens to goddamn Mergatroid, my girlfriend’s a half-eaten cheeseburger! My boyfriend’s been plated and sucked clean of sour cream! Who knows who ate ’em first! Whatever will I dooooooooo?

Kids, Auntie Ta’s never steered you wrong. No, the sled’s not at all going to rocket down the hill, across the frozen yard and voooosh! into space, and you won’t even a little slam into the street and the snowbank on the other side. So hop on.

Let’s be completely honest. Your partner in chem lab makes your insides titrate, and it’s a different world now than in the exotic antiquity when your parents and I smoked pot with our gym teacher. They’ll deny it, since old age and sloth are a whole lot easier to live with than the memory of how we used to get tanked and drive the farm hills with the lights off, because the idea that you might scares all dainty shit out of them. And with good reason. We were young and stupid, but you are on camera almost every minute of your day. Are you under arrest yet?

Yep, your parents fight off night terrors imagining what theories you’re testing with that lab partner. They’ve become the kind of spineless ninnies they once despised, but the change is not irreversible. You can be brave for them. “But, Auntie Ta,” you say, “my parents want me to save myself for marriage. Stop laughing!”

Kids, please don’t make me tell you about how your parents learned special macrame knots at scout camp or about those parties in the prop room that involved a can of Spam and tap shoes. You’re going to date – preferably outside of your high school – and dating means coming into physical contact with another human being, on whom you will practice the little tricks that will make your adult sex life happy and well-adjusted. Cover up, pets! Just – don’t tell your parents, don’t get any diseases and don’t make any babies. They’re less hilarious than in the movies, and they’d remind your parents of the prom. Which reminds me: how’re your big brothers and sisters, anyhow?

Look, chances are super-good you’ll get nekkid and do the happy cha cha cha, then you’ll break up and feel heartbroken, and after that you’ll get nekkid and do the happy cha cha cha with someone else. You might not even be all that heartbroken, but anyway: the point is that worrying about where your Sweet Baboo has ba-been is a ba-big waste of time. Plus, what you’ve been safely up to is your own mmm-mmm-mmm biz.

Don your gloves and mittens, kids. You don’t have to lose your cool or your nerve when you get rid of that nonsense no one needs. So when your parents experiment with this crazy abstinence and shame thing, don’t forget it’s not too late for you to raise them right.

This is Miss Lotte Lenya singing Mack the Knife on BBC1 in 1962, before I was born. I have her autobiography, it’s an interesting read. She’s a complicated character and you’d like her. She married her first husband twice – the Nazis came between them, doncha know – and her other husbands once. Once of my great-grandmothers was married five times. Marilyn Monroe died six months before I was born. Neither of those things is very important but both are true, and that means they matter in some context, we just don’t always know which.

Miss Lotte Lenya, as you can see, had powerful feelings about historical events that shaped her life. She was forced out of Europe by Hitler, as you may have guessed; thus her emotions make logical sense to us. We encounter this in life. Sometimes we can see why people act the way they do and sometimes we cannot. We see the emotion. We do not see the why.

Observe this Yahoo! article – and you can say that again, brother:

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them “lazy,” “violent,” responsible for their own troubles.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He’s an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation’s oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

I studied this graph at some length yesterday, and I invite you to do the same. The single most important thing I can say about the image is that respondants were asked if they considered black people friendly, lazy, hardworking or irresponsible. The phrasing of these questions – I can’t – I don’t know how to say this, but what does one say when pollsters ask if you think all black people are stupid? “No, but I feel my IQ dropping as we speak” springs to mind. In what way is it possible to answer about any group of people anything other than, “That group of people has excellent taste in shoes,” or “None of those people is holding an umbrella”? What the poll purports to measure is prejudicial feeling but where is the opportunity to express the simple truth that each individual person is different from every other person? Isn’t it logical to say, “I know that within every group is a lovely spectrum of human personality traits, and I dislike shoes”?

When you answer the phone, you are, of course, free to turn the poll back on the pollster by saying, “When you are ready to ask me an unloaded question, call me again.” Thus, you have context.

I am sensitive to the pressures of language. When you ask me a question, I answer the question you asked. Then the one you didn’t. Then the one you meant. What did you really want to know?

Most people will say some other person should be treated harshly so long as there is no possibility they will be treated the same way. If you ask, “Should Ethnic Person B have recourse to lawyers?” the answer will probably be, “No.” If you ask, “Should every defendant be given a fair trial?” bet your boots the answer is, “Yes.”

A woman I know married a man from Africa and has several children with him. To people who answered the survey above her children are not white, and to some people, this whiteness business matters. It’s a sickness, really, an affliction America chooses not to treat. White Americans, for instance, may not vote for a black candidate because he’s black. Sometimes we can see why people act the way they do and sometimes we cannot. We see the emotion. We do not see the why.

And, sometimes, there is no why.

I am me, and as mes go, I’m pretty much as me as mes get. Even so, there can be controversy.

Tata: I am giving you homework! Follow Grandpa around and record his voice.
Daria: You are not the boss of me, but yesterday, I was sitting in the third row of my truck, recording voices as Mom drove around and Grandpa told her where she was taking wrong turns.
Tata: That’s exciting, since he’s blind. And I am the boss of you!
Daria: You are not the boss of me, and I haven’t checked the sound quality yet.
Tata: I am the ringleader! There’s a ring! I am leading it!
Daria: Pipe down, you!
Tata: That reminds me: I still need a plumber.

This morning, I’ve called half a dozen of my closest creditors and service providers to tell them I’m moving. My car insurance company wants to know the license and policy numbers of everyone living on the premises, which may have something to do with state law but violates everyone’s privacy. Yesterday, the US Postal Service wanted me to provide a credit card in order to change my address online, at which point I decided my government could kiss my fabulous ass. Today, several of both creditors and service providers either refused to change my address unless I provided a phone number or would only change my address if it sent verification – and I laughed out loud when the rep said this – to the old address.

Obviously, I’ve got my hands full with the Stooopit and my cup overfloweth with vitriol. Naturally, I thought of you, and your needs. Isn’t that just like me?

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It really is!

h/t: Wintle.

Yesterday, I climbed up and down a ladder to put up temporary paper shades in the kitchen and living room. If you haven’t seen these wonderful things, you should know that they soften light and create tranquility. I needed tranquility because climbing up and down the ladder caused my right hip to kick my ass from the inside. It would not be accurate to suggest I have a Home Decorating Injury, but I certainly sprained my mojo.

While we sit back and contemplate carefully sitting back and contemplating, let’s also consider how sometimes things take turns we might’ve seen coming. For instance: Zou Kai won the Men’s Floor Exercise with a routine that should have embarrassed him. Don’t get me wrong: it was crisply executed and stacked with difficult elements. He is a remarkable athlete, no doubt about it. But – and I know there are people ready to argue with me – it wasn’t a floor routine.

Yes, according to the code of points, it was. But no, it wasn’t. A floor routine is supposed to place into a harmonious and exciting whole an athlete’s skill and technique. By this stage of competition, with luck and good television coverage, we’ve seen the routines a few times. Twice during Zou Kai’s floor exercise he did this half-hearted leap for which his feet barely left the ground. For a man who can almost fly, he barely hopped, and the first time I saw him do it, I nearly dropped my refreshing adult beverage. I mean, really. Won’t anyone think of Me?

Besides the safety of my drink, there’s something else – if you believe that: many routines by both the male and female athletes have become little more than tumbling passes set end to end, with pauses and twitching to mark beginnings and endings. Zou Kai provided a particularly egregious example of this, and by egregious I mean that his tumbling passes were astounding, then he stopped, and then he would do another stratospheric tumbling pass. And astounding it would be, but that’s not a floor routine. In fact, there’s a whole sport dedicated to this called power tumbling, and that way lies Zou Kai’s destiny. Go with my blessing, Zou Kai!

The Danes are apparently monsters with the power tumbling. I admit: there’s something about a blond man in black tights doing a series of somesaults that makes me want to do handsprings.

Thing is: this is what the audience wants and the code of points now rewards athletes for pandering. So since we’re pandering, why not pander BIG? Let’s get rid of pommel horse which almost no one loves*, ditch floor ex and replace it with long, gorgeous, swooping tumbling runs. We can send Cirque du Soleil and TV talent shows perfumed thank-you notes for showing us the way. Because, in truth, we’re never going back.

*Kurt Thomas, you know I love you. Thanks for carrying my sister with the broken foot to the truck at gymnastics camp all those years ago. But that can’t make up for giving us the only reason to keep pommel horse in the lineup: the often vain hope that it might – if only for a moment – be interesting to look at, and let’s never again speak of GymKata. It can only open old wounds…