Favreau Cankles, Favrankles

A day late and hundreds of pounds later -- that's British pounds, not flab pounds -- I am home! For awhile there, Mr. Floozy and I didn't think that Delta was ever going to let us go home. We boarded our airplane late Sunday morning and everything was going peachily until the captain announced that we were going to turn around and fly back to London. Something was wrong with the pressurization, which is code for, 'something is wrong with the plane and neener neener we aren't going to tell you.' We were already two hours into the flight and over the ocean when this happened. But, it wasn't so simple as flying back and landing. No. First they had to dump the plane's fuel over the ocean because the plane was too heavy to land. So, they dumped fuel over the ocean. We watched it from our window. How is this environmentally acceptable? It was a shiz-ton of fuel. Hey, ocean. Ya thirsty?

When we were back over London, we continued to fly in a holding pattern for another hour because there was still too much fuel to land. I was hoping that they'd dump the large, loud-snoring, weird guy in front of us. But no. I guess that is against their policy.

We landed. And one hour after that we were on another plane. Then we were stuck on the tarmac for another few hours while several other things went wrong -- the new pilots were stuck in traffic, the wrong paper forms were signed, and so forth and so on. Seventeen hours later we landed in Minneapolis, tired and ready to crash in the pee-smelly hotel the airline comped for us. By that time, my body had had it. My edema was so bad that my feet had swollen to the size of shoe boxes and my cankles looked like Jon Favreau's neck. 

Cankles

Jon Favreau's neck

Can you see the resemblance?

The next morning we went back to the airport and got on a non-cursed flight back home. 

And here I am now complaining after watching a tear-punching segment on CNN of the aftermath of the Midwest tornadoes.

Look. I know that my life isn't hard. The very fact that I thought that this plane ride was grueling actually proves that my life isn't hard. But this trip cost mucho poundso. Delta is a service industry. If I am at a restaurant and get a steak that moos or is as hard as a hockey puck, I send it back to the kitchen. On the Delta website I submitted a complaint, detailing the indignities and inconveniences in an overly-written manner.  'We went an entire ten hours without any sort of food. Not even a bag of peanuts. And when we finally were served food, it was a horrible-feet-tasting sandwich that everyone gagged down because they were so hungry.' I am expecting the Hyperbole Police to show up at my door any minute.

An experience like this makes me wonder if the airlines are more of a federalized operation than a service industry. Oh crap! I am thinking scary libertarian/republican thoughts! I am going to stop now before my sad liberal brain explodes.

I promise that the next blog post I write won't be a huge litany of complaints. (Maybe. There will definitely be a few complaints.) I will tell you all about my trip to Europe. Especially London. London was amazing. I won't be complaining (or whinging, as they say in England) about that part of the trip. The skies were always overcast! There were people speaking in British accents everywhere! And the food and theatre were brilliant. Brilliant I say! 

(A special thank you to my facebook friend Paul, for coining the word 'favrankles.')

International Lampoon Floozy Vacation

Sorry for a week of no blogging. I was super busy getting ready for EUROPE. I will be visiting London, Paris, Brussels, and Stockholm. I won't be blogging this week either, so go read a book or something. I recommend Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Summer Depression

Now, I have talked to you before about Reverse SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder) and some of you still don't believe that such a thing exists. 

IT EXISTS. 

And I am starting to freak out a bit with summer right around the corner. Spring is lovely. And I am sure that I would appreciate it without all of these danged allergies. Every orifice of my face is a spigot. I am taking so many anti-histamines that even my bones feel sleepy. But outside it is pretty. I can tell, because I am looking at it from the safety of my window.

This spring I am going to mentally prep myself for summer. I am going to buy some blackout curtains for my bedroom. I am going to re-read all of the Dresden Files series. I am going to farm out my kids to relatives. This summer should also be better because I will be working part time at the coffee shack and will have access to shot after shot of espresso. Iced. (Because even one hot cup of coffee makes my body temperature rise.) Lots and lots of iced americanos. I will stay inside as much as possible and away from the oppressive day star and its oppressive oppressive heat. I will survive the summer, oh yes. I will survive.

There is this song that Spongebob Squarepants sings. I love it so much that I embroidered it.

I know of a place
where you never
get harmed.
A MAGICAL place
with
MAGICAL CHARMS...
indoors,
indoors,
INDOORS!

Of course, when I was putting the embroidery in the frame, I accidentally dropped the corner on my face and gave myself a fat lip, thus disproving the whole 'never get harmed' theory.

Fatspiration

Because I have funny readers, I was asked to stitch 'You are the opposite of anorexic.' for a customer. At first, I was like, hmmmmm.... what does this mean? Is this some weird pro-ana thing? Because if there is anything I hate it is Thinspiration and Pro-ana. But no! It was instead an inside family joke. As my customer explained, I got the quote from my mom. She always says really offensive things and doesn't realize it and once told my sister that she was 'the opposite of anorexic.' We love saying that to each other now.

I would like to think of myself as the 'opposite of anorexic.' Even though I am trying to eat more healthily and not drink so much delicious delicious diet choke.

Sometimes I go to Pinterest and look for good recipes. Except that the longer that I am on Pinterest, the more it freaks me out. It seems like half of Pinterest is a recipe for brownies and the other half is a recipe for extreme thinness. And the images of women? Who we are supposed to try to look like after doing a certain amount of crunches and a certain amount of push-ups? Those women are impossibly configured, and impossible for most of us to emulate. I have noticed that a lot of these harsh exercise and diet regimes pins are pinned to boards labeled 'Thinspiration.' That is a pro-anorexia tag word, people! Do NOT use it. Thankfully, when I did a search for 'thinspiration' on Pinterest, I saw this:

The header reads, 

Eating disorders are not lifestyle choices, they are mental disorders that if left untreated can cause serious health problems or could even be life-threatening.
For treatment referrals, information, and support, you can always contact the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1-800-931-2237 orwww.nationaleatingdisorders.org

THANK YOU, PINTEREST, for being awesome. 

To make even Pinterest cooler, I searched for 'fatspiration' and found lots of cool quotes and pictures of beautiful women.

I liked this fatspiration the most.

Pwahaha! Thigh rub! Man, I hate thigh rub! And it's a normal body function. Like sweating. And swearing. 

Thank goodness for skorts!

Oh, and before I let you go, I want to show you this amazing article by this amazing, curvaceous woman, Haley Morris-Cafiero, who takes pictures of herself while people in the background stare at her.  I loved it.

You are all the opposite of lame! Have a great day!

Doomed Birthdays and a Giveaway Winner Announced

The Winner of the Go Fork Yourself Giveaway is Barbara! 

Her birthday was commemorated by the Boston marathon bombing and her daughter's birthday is September the 11th. I have always worried about those poor kids who have birthdays on that day. 

Here is her winningly sad story. 

No. "I" need this! My sister and I say this to ourselves all the time because we come from a family of complete cRaZies! Today is my birthday...4/15....turned out to be pretty bad..you know, the Boston marathon tragedy that I heard about on the radio as I was driving 50 miles to the grocery store. (yes..I live 50 miles from a forking grocery store!!)

I have a daughter born on 9/11. As my daughter remarked today..WTF! Are all the birthdays in our family to be marked with terribleness? Oh..and I was also diagnosed with celiac disease two weeks ago, and it seems my 4 offspring likely suffer from it also. Our food supply in this country is poisoning us all!! HOW IRONIC! Me, a champion bread baker from way back, and my husband's favorite food is 'dough.' Well, he is just going to have to be 'doughless' because I'm not cooking twice..once for him and once for me! So...Fork Me!!

Everybody should also check out her lovely website Stitchpography. She is an incredibly talented stitcher! I love her!

Please send me an email, Barbara! (thecottonfloozy[at]gmail[dot]com)

hysterical and useless

hysterical and useless

I am feeling incurably wordless today. And so I will show you this lovely little embroidery I made for myself.

It comes from Radiohead's song, "Let Down." (My favorite song of all time.)

I look at those three words -- hysterical and useless -- and smile. It makes me stop feeling sorry for myself whenever I am having a dumb day. Those three words cork my tears. Because I think it is so damned funny. As women we have been reduced to those three words over and over and over again. And it is so laughably untrue. Just because we are emotional beings, doesn't mean that we aren't strong.  I think of another few lines of the song, 'One day I am going to grow wings. A chemical reaction.'

'GO FORK YOURSELF' GIVEAWAY

My son overslept because he thought it was Sunday. Poor child, I was the one who had to break it to him that it was indeed Monday and that he had approximately none minutes to get ready in time to make it to the bus. 

My daughter sat on my lap while I clipped her blinged-out-hooker barrette on the side of her head. She sighed, 'Why are Mondays stupid.' And I answered, 'Because Garfield said so.' And she nodded her head, like sure, that makes sense.

And now I am watching my dogs out the window, eating their poop. Let me clarify. I am not the one eating the poop. Yesterday I paid none dollars for a kindle book: 'STOP YOUR DOG FROM EATING POO!' A title that deserves all-caps and an exclamation point, if ever there was one. I think I will be reading this book today, because that should make my Monday awesome.

And if you want to tell me about your general hatred for pretty much anything, comment here in this post. Grumble away. Tell me your sad sad first world story problem. I'm listening.

go f**k yourself

Whoever tells the funniest or heartbreaking-est or dumbest story in the comments section will win this 'go f**k yourself' sampler.

Really, you can write anything. I am easily amused.

This giveaway will last a week, until next Monday. Just make sure that if you enter, you check back, or better yet, message me your email address so that I can let you know you won so I can mail it out to you.