Whay do tragedies always happen in 3s?

1. Cook who helped create Stove Top stuffing dies.
EVANSVILLE, Ind. Nov. 23, 2005- Ruth M. Siems, a home economist who helped create Stove Top stuffing, a Thanksgiving favorite that will be on dinner tables across the country this year, has died at 74.

2.'Karate Kid’ star Pat Morita dies at 73.
LOS ANGELES - Nov. 25, 2005 - Actor Pat Morita, whose portrayal of the wise and dry-witted Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" earned him an Oscar nomination, has died. He was 73.

3. The "Newlyweds" call it quits.
LOS ANGELES - Nov 26, 2005 - After months of rumours, denials, and salacious magazine covers, US singers Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are officially kaput.
The couple jointly announced their separation, confirmed their publicists Meredith O' Sullivan and Rob Shooter.

Just call me Weezie.

The paper work ain't done yet, but after an hour long meeting with the architect, it's all but a done deal.

*humming "The Jefferson's theme song" *

...But we got the f*&^ing penthouse baby!

Why I heart France: Reason #1

French smoker tried to open plane door.



A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.

Sandrine Helene Sellies, 34, who has a fear of flying, had drunk alcohol and taken sleeping tablets ahead of the flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane. The French tourist was at the start of a three-week holiday in Australia with her husband.

She was seen on the Cathay Pacific plane walking towards a door with an unlit cigarette and a lighter. She then began tampering with the emergency exit until she was stopped by a flight attendant.

Defence lawyer Helen Shilton said her client had no memory of what had happened on the flight on Saturday, and that she had a history of sleepwalking.
She pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft at Brisbane Magistrates Court and was given a 12-month A$1,000 (£429) good behaviour bond - she will forfeit the money if she commits another offence.

p.s. I would like to sample whatever "sleeping tablets" she was taking.
(don't believe me? Go see for yourself: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4456076.stm)

This parking lot could be our next home.

Yes. We're house hunting. Apartment hunting to be more exact. We've seen several places in all shapes and sizes, but nothing that quite fit both our needs and our budget. UNTIL--Thursday we found an ad in the paper for this lil baby in Metz Sablon. Right now it looks like this:

But by the end of 2006 it will look like this:

We called the builders and they faxed us the blueprints Friday afternoon. We went to look at the actual building site on Saturday afternoon. This morning we made an appointment to meet with the architect for Thursday evening. *crossing fingers*

Side note: if we do end up buying this place , you will never see us again as we will have no reason to leave the apartment. I can't speak for David, but I for one, will be spending the next 15 years in my studio on the first floor, and on my private roof terrace & garden getting all tanned and leathery.

I am in looooove!

I'm skinnier than pregnant chics.

I was shopping.


Correction: I was trying to shop.

Realization: "Daaamn, I've gained some weight since I moved to France!"

I am now convinced that my fatness is a subconscious revolt against the French skinniness that surrounds me. In a nation of size 4 women, these frogs need a little size 16 to tip the scale back over into some degree of normalcy.

No. Wait. Who am I kidding here?

For the past 2 years being chubby has been my personal “fuck you” to the French.
As if by the width of my ass alone I could somehow say to the entire nation: “That’s right, I’m American. I take up a whooooole lotta space!”. Funny the things you cling to when you’re far away from home.

I have been clinging to my fat.

Wait. Where were we…oh yes.

Shopping:
In France all my shopping trips begin and end the exact same way. I go into the store giddy with desire, only to leave the store with a headache and a heart full of broken dreams approximately 22 minutes later. That's right: TWENTY TWO MINUTES.

Today’s shopping expedition started off no differently than the others. I spent 10 minutes looking through the “women’s” section, 8 minutes looking through the “Big sizes” section, then with my head lowered in shame, I slink off towards ----the maternity section.

That’s right. In France, I’m so fucking fat that they figure I MUST be knocked up.

But today the strangest thing occurred to me as I sorted through the rows and rows of roomy cotton tunics, and baby blue “it’s a boy” t-shirts. As I slowly looked around at my fellow shoppers I realized that in the maternity clothing section- I'm already skinny!

I then grabbed two tent-like cotton tunics from the nearest clearance rack and headed for the check out line.

I made it to my car with 2 minutes to spare.

Isn't Paris Romantic?

Dear American friends and family~

No---there ain't no burnin' or riots going on near where we live!

So please stop worrying, writing anxious e-mails, and urging me to take refuge in Switzerland. The last thing to get burned around here was a pit full of garbage in some French hillbilly's back yard.

That said: If I were young , poor, and marginalized, didn't have the right to vote, and had no way of making the government pay attention to me, I might be out in the streets burning too. Especially if Nick Sarkozy (the French Interior Minister) came to my neighborhood and called me scum. (Very nice touch Nick. Thanks.)

Everyone seems to forget that rioting is ALWAYS a symptom of a much greater problem brewing in a community. What really needs to be looked at is the poverty, unemployment, racism, discrimination, and other factors going on in France. Everyone keeps talking about the smoke and fire an not about the REAL cause of all this mayhem.

I'm NOT saying that rioting is the best response---but ask yourself----if you're life was filled with poverty, sadness, and violence, and the government of your country ignored your peaceful cries for help, what would YOU do? Peace rallies barely make the morning news----but fires ALWAYS draw attention.

Enough already.

Surgery Couture.

I am quite sure that I'm well on my way towards some type of morbid record concerning the number of surgeries one person is allowed to have during a one year period. Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating. In any case, I spent October 18-31st on lock-down AGAIN at Nancy L'hopital Central.

So--I have this area of skin that just won't heal. It's about 6 inches long and about a half an inch wide. That's it. No more , no less. But it's just there all pink and angry.

For those of you who have no idea how I got myself into this mess in the first place, I won't bore you with the gorey details, but here's the synopsis:
I had a cyst on my tail bone. In order to remove cyst Dr. had to remove big chunk of skin off my ass. To heal area where chunk was removed Dr. did a traditional skin graft using skin from my fat ass cheeks. The skin graft did NOT work but skin starting growing anyway. (side note: I now have 2 new scars. They are perfect recangles and are perfectly symetrical. One on each ass cheek.) Eight months later my original surgery, all the skin has grown back into place on the original surgery site---except this 6 by 2 inch patch which refuses to heal. So my Dr. did a yet another type of skin graft to jump start the healing process.

Right now it's about as pretty as an exit wound and as mean as your 3rd grade math teacher.

I hate it.

Oh and since it lies perfectly at the base of the spinal column it is dead center on a huge bundle of nerve endings which make each and every of my most simple body movements feel like someone has set the seat of my pants on fire.
(Another side note #2: Why I have not become a junkie is beyond me.)
It actually hurts so much that I'm tired of talking about it. I'm bored of my illness.
Quite frankly, the only reason I wrote about it in my blog is so I could post the photos that my lovely husband David took of me before I went into surgery all dressed up in my surgery Haute couture gown and head ensemble.

Those little white gauzy caps always remind me of the food service workers in my Highschool cafeteria. Am I going to surgery or am I about to serve you Goulash from my rusty silver spatula? Who can say for sure?

And for some real entertainment----here is of course the "after" photo where I am clearly about as lively as a corpse.

Ahhhhh-Sleeping beauty!

Oh--the jokers in the O.R. somehow forgot to remove all my heart monitor electrode thingys.
Three days after this photo was taken I found an electrode still glued to my back somewhere north of my kidney. For some reason it scared the pants of me to think that thing was still there days later and I had failed to notice.

I have one thing to say about that: If you have it in mind to glue metal objects onto a poorly dressed unconscious person, please have the decency and presence of mind to remember to remove them later.

At any rate...I'm waiting for the right moment to seek my revenge.