Spring Lingerie

I love gorgeous lingerie.

Ever since I was old enough to put girly bits into some, I've loved pretty bras, panties, garter belts, corsets, camisoles, seamed stockings and such. I don't really like Victoria's Secret. I think they use too much polyester and a lot of the merchandise is not really my taste.

I love finding a good lingerie shop where I can find high-quality well made lingerie. "La Perla" is fine, but frankly out of my budget. Still, there are some exquisite small lingerie shops in San Francisco where you can buy beautiful items and get real "help" from the staff.

For many years, I have replenished my unmentionables in the Spring. There's something about the season that makes me crave lacy, silky, and beautiful "stuff" in pretty colors.

The only problem with gorgeous lingerie is that I want to show it to somebody. I have an overwhelming urge to open the door to the UPS guy and let my robe fall open so he can catch a glimpse of my finery. (Okay, I don't do it, but I do think about it. Okay, yeah, I have done it but it was a long time ago. Okay, it was last Spring actually!)

Don't get me wrong. My husband Alex does smile and say "Uhm, pretty, Honey!" and then goes back to the baseball game. Yeah, it's like that after 20 years of wedded bliss.

Men are funny about their own under-garments. I have to go through Alex's underwear and toss the stuff with holes, torn elastic, and so on. I want to make sure that if he does fool around with a chippie, she will know that he already has a wife who takes care of him.

Left to his own devices, the chippie would probably think "Oh you poor man with no woman to look after you!" and make a real effort to alienate his affections.

I wonder what time UPS will be here on Monday!

Harry Thompson's Day Off

We left Harry and Honey home on Easter Sunday while we traveled up to the Sacramento area to see my son and his family.

Harry is Jewish, and he doesn't really care about missing out on Easter since it doesn't include matzo balls. He also takes his guard dog responsibilities fairly seriously and patrols constantly from the time we leave until we return home, only taking short breaks for naps once in a while.

Honey is agnostic and doesn't ever worry about things above her pay grade. She is perfectly content napping in one of her favorite spots, barking at dogs that pass by the window, and just being "chill" until we come back.

We left at noon and didn't arrive home again until after 8 PM. That was a fairly long time to leave them home alone, but I was pretty sure they were fine. I start getting anxiety feelings about the time we need to return home. I always worry that something has gone wrong. (I start to obsess over things like: what if they knocked over the water bowls? What if they got out of the yard? What if a prowler came and Harry ate him? What if they bark constantly the whole time we are gone?)

People tell me I worry too much about things that never happen. I do worry that something might go wrong because it's my nature. I don't like leaving my dogs home alone. Sometimes we will take Harry and Honey with us, but since there were going to be 20+ people for Easter dinner, including 7 children and two resident dogs, I felt it would be a bit much to show up with our dogs.

When we got home, everything looked normal. Harry was a little more hyper than usual, but I figured that was because he missed us. I saw that we had several phone messages and I checked them. One call had come from my next-door neighbor, Mary, and she asked that I call her as soon as we got home.

When I called her, Mary told me that Harry had spent all afternoon outside by himself in the neighborhood. He came to her gate and barked for Dutch and Sansom, her two dogs, to come out and play. Mary let her dogs out and the three of them ran wild in the front yard for a while, then Harry moved on to the next house down the street where there was a barbecue in full swing. The people having the party are Dean and Rene. They greeted Harry like an old friend and he hobnobbed with them and their guests for the rest of the afternoon. Harry was delighted to entertain the children and keep the area clean if food fell on the ground. He's good like that.

Dean said that Harry "zapped" a squirrel in the yard to the amazement of all of the party attendees. It was over in a second and the squirrel party crasher never had a chance.

Harry went back to Mary's and again tried to get Dutch and Sansom to come out and play, but it was getting late so Mary brought Harry home and put him in the back in our yard.

I apologized profusely but Mary said it was no problem at all. Harry had a great day visiting with friends, and keeping down the rodent population. (When I have seen Mary's dogs outside of their yard without an owner, I have always returned them home immediately. I think Mary is more liberal than I am.)

I still have no idea how Harry got out of the backyard. We have a 7 foot iron fence and he didn't jump over it. When I tried to talk to him about danger and responsibility, he just yawned.

He had a great day, but all the barbecue gave him the runs. Serves him right.

People Like Weird Shit

I know some people would think this was a weird oil painting.

I think it's a little eccentric, but very cool. I know the guy who painted it, and I bought it from him directly. Why do I like it? Well, it's not because of the cat.

I like it because it's a self-portrait of a man who sells books in my town. His cat was a fixture for many years at his sort of creepy used book store. The man himself is a little "odd", but I doubt that he's a serial killer or anything. He's just a little off-kilter. Oh, and I like the "Orphan Annie" eyes.

This painting is in my kitchen. It doesn't creep me out at all, but I do think it's funny.

We have fine art too. But whether it's a Marc Chagall signed lithograph or the famous New Orleans "blue dog", it has to speak to me.

Yesterday was Easter and we went to my son's for dinner. His wife Kate put together a lovely meal with bbq leg of lamb along with a lot of other wonderful things to eat. She had small white boxes with tiny chicks on top of them at all the place settings. When people asked her what was inside, she said "It's a secret". She let Alex take home some of the chicks because he really liked them. Kate also gave me a book by a guy from my town. I took a photo of these things because I love what they look like. (Oh, what was in the boxes? It's a secret.)

I have a neighbor lady who collects hand painted antique dolls. She has them piled up on an antique chase in her parlor. Those dolls creep me out so much that I can barely even walk in her house. Those flat eyes scare the hell out of me. There are probably 40 dolls or even more all lined up together. Ugh! That is horror movie shit to me.

I know another woman who had her cat stuffed after he died. She kept him in the bathroom on the toilet tank. This woman worked with me and dressed like a hooker from the 70's. She was not a hooker, but she was probably in her late 30's in the 70's. When I worked with her she was 60 and still dressed like a hooker every day. I thought she was actually pretty cool. Her taste in cat art, not so much though.

It's funny because if I like it, I think it's normal. It's other people who seem to like the weird shit.

Michael Lived Fast And Died Young

Michael was my brother.

He was my father's 2nd son with his new wife. (My dad had 4 girls with my mother.)

I met Michael and got to know him right before my son John was born. Michael was only a year older than my own son.

Michael had a sparkle to him even as a baby. He was an easy, happy little boy and his parents pride and joy. I watched Michael grow from a beautiful baby to a gorgeous young man. By the time he was 15, he had more experience with girls than most men do at 40.

Michael excelled at sports and guys liked him too, but he was always a little wild. I think he got in trouble for smoking pot and snorting cocaine the first time when he was about 16. My father had died a couple of years earlier and Michael had moved away from San Francisco with his mother and older brother, Joaquin.

Michael's mother hoped getting him away from "bad influences" in the City would be good for him. It didn't really matter because Michael was the party! My own kids were thoroughly delighted with their devilishly fun only slightly older uncle.

As a young man, Michael drank too much, loved too intensely, drove too fast and took a lot of risks. He was a successful male model for a while. Later he sold stocks for a brokerage house in San Francisco and made enough money to buy a sailboat and take up racing. He was good at everything he did and I adored him.

People who met him were charmed and enchanted. It was easy to overlook his wildness because of his sweetness and winning personality. When Michael talked to you, he let you know that nobody in the world was more important to him than you. That's a pretty seductive quality.

Two months before his 42nd birthday, Michael crashed his car into a tree on his way home after an evening out with friends. They think he died instantly and it seems alcohol may have been involved. He died early in the morning hours of February 17, 2008. The world has seemed a little dimmer to me after his passing.

Mary Had A Little Lamb (But All I've Got Is Harry)

Harry is a very hinky dog, and he gets "spooked" by a lot of things.

When Harry gets nervous, he wants to clamor on to my lap for shelter. Never mind that he is 90 pounds of shuddering muscle, he wants to be protected.

When I awakened this morning and came downstairs, Harry was waiting for me panting. I walked to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and Harry climbed under my robe for safety. Harry moved with me almost in unison as I tried to cross the kitchen floor. Unfortunately for me, the "almost" part of this 6-legged walk nearly knocked me off my feet. After one cup of spilled coffee, I tried to make Harry get out from under my robe, but he would not be budged.

After a few minutes, I telephoned Alex to ask him, "What's wrong with your boy?" and he claimed not to have a clue. Harry ate breakfast while I straddled him with my robe covering part of him including his head. It's the only way he would eat.

Trying to get into the rather small pantry with a 90 pound appendage affixed to me was somewhat difficult, as was walking and not falling. I came into the office to check emails and look at the internet but Harry put his front paws on my lap and his head right under my chin as he shivered and panted. Reaching the keyboard was difficult and not worth the effort.

Meanwhile, Honey, my other dog, was giving Harry the "stank eye". She is the alpha, and is extremely jealous of any perceived attention Harry may be receiving. Honey even bared her teeth at Harry which usually is enough to send him into hiding for at least 2 hours. Not this morning.

Finally, Alex called to see if Harry had calmed down. I assured him that he had not. At this point, Alex remembered installing mosquito zapper equipment outside in the yard yesterday. We concluded that the "zap" noise was the culprit causing Harry's dismay.

I went outside, nearly falling down the flight of stairs because Harry was walking between my legs and I got the "zapper" unplugged.

Harry's a very sensitive guy. Since the noise is no longer bothering him, he has returned to being a manly man dog again.

I'm glad of that.

Size Matters

Would you look at the size of my lemons!

Now, don't be jealous. We all can't have huge mutant lemons. Each one of these lemons weights well over a pound. That's a lot of lemonade! I think it's safe to say that I will never have a lemon juice shortage at my house.

I have another photo that shows my hand near the lemons so you can get a better idea of how big they are.

Now you may also notice that I am wearing a good-sized diamond ring on my finger. This is an area where size matters.

There are other areas where size really does not matter. A lot of men claim to be very attracted to women with large breasts, in fact, it's sort of a fixation in America. In actuality, a lot of men prefer smaller breasted women. I saw a fantastically gorgeous woman at the Gay Freedom Parade in San Francisco last year who had one breast. She wore a black leather contraption that exposed her one breast but covered the area of the missing breast.

There was not a straight man in the crowd who didn't look at her with interest. The woman looked like a warrior princess who had perhaps lopped off her own breast to improve her archery skills. She was gorgeous.

Another area that people talk and joke about is penis size. More is considered better, but I really don't think most women actually care one way or the other.

Having a big penis does not make a man good in bed. As long as he has enough to get the job done, it's just fine. In fact, I've turned down a club or two in my life and I have never regretted doing so. There was really no reason to stretch the boundaries.

I do like big lemons and big diamonds though.

Bad Hair Days

I don't know of much that disgusts as much as a bad hair day.

I can put on the cutest clothing in the whole wide world, step into the most fantastic stilettos anyone has ever seen, and spray on the Coco. I'm still going to look like shit.

Now people who see this photo are maybe going to say, "...just comb it and it'll be fine." Uh, no, it won't be fine. I have combed it. I have brushed it. I have put goop on it. I have put a hat over it. There is nothing fine about it.

The hair itself has it's moods and today is surly. It doesn't matter what I do to it, I will not be able to open the front door even to get that check from Publisher's Clearing House. My hair is not too clean or too dirty either. It just woke up this way.

On this day, my husband will come through the door after work and say "Hi Honey! You look pretty!" Is it any wonder that women stab their husbands? Is there any wonder that women sometimes hate their husbands? I think not.

Even my dogs are looking at me with a "What the F is wrong with your hair?" expression. Unconditional love? Not really, the little bastards.

I had every intention of going to the store today. I need a couple of important things and the store is one block away from my house. I took a look in the mirror and decided nothing is important enough to show off this hair to the public at large.

I hope this gets better sometime this week.