From bad to worse

This couch never stood a chance.

The original print reminds me of some sheets I had when I was little.

The slipcover looks like a Laura Ashley dress from the 80's.

It's called gratitude, and that's right

I was watching some show on HGTV a couple nights ago, either My First Place or House Hunters, something during their First Time Home Buyers programming (yes, I watch way too much HGTV). Anyway, the couple searching for a home on this particular show was completely charming and their outlook was a refreshing change from the snobby Debbie Downers that are usually on these shows.

I don't really know what either of them did for a living, but they didn't appear to be rolling in dough and the three houses they looked at were all very humble and modest (dumps). I made up names and backstories for them in which the husband (Allan) is in seminary and the wife (Cindy) stays at home with their kid and works part time doing something involving scrapbooking.

In the house they ended up buying, the washer and dryer were in the one and only bathroom, and they weren't even tucked away in a corner -- you practically ran into them as you walked into the room. Allan did not like the flooring in that room, which looked like the floor of a Fellowship Hall in the basement of an old church, and when we got to see the house after they had been living there for a couple months, he had replaced that floor with some nice slate tiles. They showed Cindy folding laundry on top of the washing machine, smiling and talking about how happy she was to have laundry in the house. She was so genuinely cheerful and positive and grateful that I just wanted to hug her.

Some couples on these shows will stick their noses up and make snotty comments when they walk into a room painted a color they don't like. People, it's just paint! All you have to do to rectify the situation is paint the walls a color you prefer. Are you too hifalutin to pick up a paintbrush? These stuck up prisses act like they can't even consider buying a house if it has a purple bedroom or a green bathroom.

The closet in the master bedroom was one of those long ones with three sliding doors. I know from experience that these closets are kind of a pain to utilize plus one or all of the doors are always coming off the track. Cindy's take on this closet as she looked into both ends: "Look Honey, his and hers closets!" It was adorable, and much better than what I usually have to hear from other people, which is more along the lines of "I guess this one's yours" (husband yuk yuks to wife regarding the entire master bedroom closet) or "Well, this might hold my shoes" (clearly shoe-crazy wife whines about perfectly normal-sized closet).

This couple was finally able to get a dog (they named him Black Jack) for their little boy (Jayden, also his real name), which they had not been able to do while they were living in their no-pets apartment. Cindy was so pleased that they were able to give their son a pet that she didn't mind holding the dog's leash while Jayden and the dog ran around playing catch in the small, unfenced yard. Most times on these shows people will say of much larger yards "Oh, this isn't enough room for Muffin, plus we would have to put up a fence." Cindy was not just content but truly thrilled with and appreciative of what little she had, and that attitude was just so endearing.

And the best part? Throughout their home search, not once did Allan walk into a room and say "Babe, this could be the Man Cave!" And I loved him for that.

Why anyone being able to edit Wikipedia is a bad idea

I found the following paragraph on Elijah Wood's Wikipedia page on May 11, 2009.

Wood may have owned his own pair of nunchucks. Records show that he was an accomplished ninja. His daily studies included ninja star throwing, stealthily sneaking around to steal cookies from his mommy, and catching flies with chopsticks. Although the ninja movement looked down upon homosexuality, they allowed Wood to join them in their daily ninja practices.

The Hi-Pointe

The Hi-Pointe Theatre, which is within walking distance of my house and has $5 admission on Wednesdays, is one of the many amenities of my neighborhood that I sadly don't take advantage of nearly enough. I did go see Inception last Wednesday, and even though I liked the movie and loved the price, the experience reminded me that I don't like to see movies at the theatre. My preferred movie-watching venue is my living room. My couch is infinitely more comfortable than theatre seats, I can pause and pee whenever I want to, no one tall comes and sits in front of me at the last moment, etc.

You should have seen this jerk sitting on the aisle that I had to walk past to get to my chosen mid-row seat. He gave me a dirty look when I squeezed past him a good 10 minutes before previews started. Then when a couple tried to get past him a few minutes later (still before the previews started), he made a big show of sighing loudly and looking at his watch as if they were late and their entrance ruined his movie-going experience. That guy is never at the end of my couch.

Fun fact about the Hi-Pointe: it won Best Movie Theatre in RFT's 2003 Best of issue, with high marks for their stellar urinals.

Funny fact: at first I thought it won for Best Urinals. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what you get from the following sentence, found in the About The Theatre section of their website: "Today the theatre boasts a huge new screen and explosive Dolby Digital sound while preserving the theatre's historic and neighborhood cachet, including a cozy lobby, turquoise curtains, quaint second-floor restrooms and men's urinals noted by the Riverfront Times as "best in St. Louis.""

** I did not take the photo, but I did see The Hangover there

Some quick thoughts on smoking

I haven't smoked in 1 year, 6 months and 27 days and I'm extremely proud of this. While I did enjoy smoking for a good 20 years, I progressively grew to hate the habit more and more.

My house is non-smoking, and when a friend stepped outside for a quick smoke recently, I told her to enjoy her "filthy habit."

This is why ex-smokers are the worst kind of non-smokers - I act like I didn't stink up every room I was in for a couple of decades. The uppity arrogance is unparalleled.

My dad (see above picture) has smoked since forever and he's the coolest smoker you'll ever lay eyes on. Nobody looks cooler while engaging in this "filthy habit". Nobody.

Mad Men

Last night's Mad Men was wonderful. Here were some highlights for me:

• Peggy's hair looks amazing! Good riddance to those terrible butt-cut bangs.
• Sally has always been cute but is now super-pretty. I think she grew out of the lisp too.
• Don pays for sex?!? More on that in a moment.
• Don likes to get slapped during sex?!? Truly surprising.
• Don and Roger are friends again, or at least they seemed to be. That's good. Why Don was so angry with him in the first place was always kind of a mystery to me.
• When Don threw the squares from Jantzen out of his office, basically for being square

Let's jump right into Don Draper paying for sex. The last three seasons he's had women coming out of his ears and now that he's divorced and can have non-sneaking around, guilt-free sex with whomever he wants, he has sex with what looks to be his regular prostitute? And he wants her to slap him "harder" and "again"! That's just nuts. I'm intrigued.

Also intriguing was that Betty's new Old Man husband seems to have the same penchant for sneaking-around, illicit sex/relationships. He's married to Betty, it's official and everything, yet he didn't want to have sex in their bed but in the car in the garage. Quite frankly I don't know how she can stand to have his gross Dad Hands on her in any setting. It's also totally unacceptable that he and Betty still live in Don's house. That's outrageous.

While I'm thrilled that Betty redecorated the bedroom now that she's sharing it with a new husband, I miss her and Don's teal tufted headboard. I liked that.

I also liked that the new kid working with Peggy is the kid from that Jack and Bobby show that was on a few years ago for like four episodes that I and four other people watched. I like him.

I feel like a snob for using "whomever". I used it because (I think) it's correct, but it feels weird to me because I never say "whom" or "whomever" in real life.

One is going east; the other one is going west, so what?

Last night I was at this place called Anthonino’s on The Hill (a St. Louis Italian neighborhood) for a friend’s birthday party. The painting behind the bar caught my eye and for a second I didn’t know why it seemed familiar. Then I realized that it’s the painting that Tommy’s mom (played by Martin Scorsese’s mom) pulls out to show the guys in Goodfellas! Henry, Jimmy, and Tommy stop by her house in the middle of the night to borrow a shovel on their way to bury Billy Batts, and she wakes up and makes them a big meal. With the cutest mixture of shyness and pride, she asks them if Tommy has told them about her painting.

According to imdb, the painting is based on a picture from the November 1978 National Geographic.

Anthonino’s also had a couple of really cool light fixtures.

Season 4 of Mad Men starts tonight! Yaaaaaaaaaay! Speaking of TV, I'm frustrated with KSDK (St. Louis's NBC affiliate) for showing some Whitey Herzog special instead of Friday Night Lights this week. They're playing FNL at 12:30 Monday morning. This is an outrage. Friday Night Lights is meant to be viewed on FRIDAY NIGHT.

The Assman

Apparently this guy who lives around the corner from me is The Assman.