Monthly Archives: August 2008

Project Driveway, I mean Runway — using Saturn automotive parts

Posted on August 28, 2008 by wendy| 2 Comments

[again, with the spoilers below]

I was JUST telling a friend that my favorite challenges are the ones that they have to make an outfit out of garbage. Then lo and behold, we get this challenge: use all the recyclable parts of Saturn cars! Yay me!

Designers all headed for the seat belts (so you can be safe! as Dora would say…and maybe the contestants).

leanne1.jpgI think it was a toss-up for best this week, Leanne or Korto. At least Korto’s could actually be worn while driving a car.

However, Leanne’s dress while probably hard to sit in, had stuffing added to keep the hip poufs out. Points for high fashion safety air bags? We regular women have our own, built-in poufs. But they don’t enlarge upon contact, unless it’s contact with Ben & Jerry’s Super Fudge Chunk….

korto.jpgAnyway, Korto won. Keith lost. keith.jpgFinally. While exiting, his voiceover said how bummed he was to get the boot as he’s stuck in Utah and this was his big chance. Is he not allowed to leave Utah? Some parole deal we don’t know about? Maybe there’s an anger management thing? It looked as if he and guest judge Laura from Season 3 almost got into a fight.

“ExCUSE ME??” she said. I could imagine her talking to one of her six kids. “You talkin’ to ME? HUH? HUH?” She is a New Yorker after all. And I’m pretty sure she could take him in a fight.

At the end, we debated in our house about who should have won–Leanne or Korto. Did you debate, too?

(oh, not that I’m saying the Hubs would ever watch a show like this….)

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Posted in op-ed, tv

Learn-A-Word Wednesday: quondam \KWAHN-duhm; KWAHN-dam\

Posted on August 27, 2008 by wendy| 4 Comments

adjective:

Having been formerly; former; sometime.

A quondam flower child, she spent seven years at the Royal College of Art, before becoming a lecturer at Edinburgh School of Art.
– “Interview: Cool, calm collector”, Independent, December 13, 1997

Quondam comes from the Latin quondam, “formerly,” from quom, “when.”

Seems like I shoulda known this word. After all, I am a quondam lawyer, and they know a few words. OK, they might only know long words which are in fact just short words connected to each other, such as aforementioned or heretofore or nonetheless….

Are you a quondam something?

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Posted in me-me-me, words

love at the Kitsap county fair

Posted on August 26, 2008 by wendy| 10 Comments

We went to county fair with Jenny and CJ last week. We all loved the animals. And by “we,” I mean the grown-ups. The kids just loved the rides.

But I think the animals loved each other, too (all the animals, even inter-species affections, as evidenced by the zedonk). They started young:
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The older ones clearly desired private conversations:
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Then they graduated to more action. No cameras allowed in here:
dsc_0020-1.JPGAlthough the fact that there was hand sanitizer at the exit should tell you something about the activities going on in there.

Of course, by the end of the love fest, everyone felt weak and needed this (and maybe a cigarette):
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Posted in animals, Bainbridge Island, WA, events

he said/she said: street signage

Posted on August 25, 2008 by wendy| 7 Comments

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She: We got new “No Parking” signs on the street in front of our house! Yippee!! No more cars blocking our driveway visibility! No more walking in the middle of the road with the dog! I have to call my friends!

He: Did you see that bullsh*t out front?!

She: Oh, it will be great! Thank goodness they’re in before school starts next week, and people are parking every which way!

He: Think they put enough of them out there?! It’s an insulting level of city management. There are 100 signs in 20 feet. Bah! Too much!

She: First, the lower speed limit, now these. It’s SUCH an improvement and so much safer!

He: Just ridiculous! Can’t even see the trees for all the signs. And at our expense! They’re just a permanent, glow-in-the-dark reminder of tax dollar waste.

She: Oh, take your pills, dear.

He: Next, they’ll put up a “Breathe” sign….

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Posted in Bainbridge Island, WA, marriage, venting

Queens rule the runway, Project Runway

Posted on August 21, 2008 by wendy| 4 Comments

So the drag queens came to spice up this season. And they did.

[spoilers ahead!]

terri.jpgFirst off, TERRI SHOULD HAVE WON again. She might be getting bitter about it. I would. Hell, I am.

joe.jpgJoe may have crossed his own personal prejudice to make a good outfit, but so what? Do they award for Nice Result While Freakin’ Your Homophobic Butt? I think not, people.

Although it was funny to see the shock in his face when he first met his queen. “I’ll just have to approach it like I’m making a Halloween costume for my daughters,” he confessed later. After a comment like that, we all know what Joe’s gonna have to approach after this season: therapy.

And why can’t they be like Trump and fire TWO designers? Really, Keith AND Daniel should be gone by now. And between the two, they keep Mr. Fringe? All his stuff just reminds me that I need to go to the car wash.

I leave you with my favorite queen quotes (including those from Tim):

“I don’t need to rely on COSTUMES! Have you SEEN me?!”

“I can crack a rib overnight. Come ON, Stella!”

“I feel a little barnacle-y.”

“It looks like a pterodactyl out of a gay Jurassic Park.”

“You can tell her you’ve been to a different rodeo.” (I’m still confused about that one)

A Final Note: did anyone else notice how much giggling Kors was doing?? WTH??

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Posted in op-ed, tv

Learn-A-Word Wednesday: woebegone \WOE-bee-gon\

Posted on August 20, 2008 by wendy| 8 Comments

adjective:
1. Beset or overwhelmed with woe; immersed in grief or sorrow; woeful.
2. Being in a sorry condition; dismal-looking; dilapidated; run-down.

Socrates, condemned to death by the people of Athens, prepares to drink a cup of hemlock, surrounded by woebegone friends.
– Alain De Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

Woebegone is from Middle English wo begon, from wo (from Old English wa, used to express grief) + begon, past participle of begon, “to go about, to beset,” from Old English began, bigan, from bi-, “around, about” + gan, “to go.”

This word reminds me of this book which I have not read. From the title, sounds depressing. I know, it’s a radio show! Whatever.

I’m grumpy today and feeling woebegone because….well, a variety of things. Here’s one thing:

img_4394-1.jpg My BABY lost her first tooth. I was not prepared for my emotional reaction.

I almost cried. WTH? A tooth. A teeny weeny baby tooth. That, IMO, has no business being out of that flappin’ little mouth. Truly, a lazy tooth shirking its responsibilities. I am sure it had many more months, maybe years, of chewing that it was lined up for.

And THIS, two weeks before she goes off to full day kindergarten? What I am going to be like on THAT DAY?

You don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.

All I feel like doing now is going around woeing…sighsighsigh.

Are you having woebegone days?

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Posted in aging, Bainbridge Island, WA, kid, words

confession time, again….now, the Summer Olympics in Beijing

Posted on August 19, 2008 by wendy| 6 Comments

rings.jpgI confessed a few weeks ago about certain artistic endeavors I took on. Now, I have a new confession:
I don’t really like the summer Olympics.

splat! crash! plop! (sounds of rotten vegetables being thrown at me)

The End.

Why, you ask, is Wendy such a traitor to this great land of ours? (that was your question, right?) Well, I had hoped that Project Runway episode would have excited me about the Games, but no, apparently not.

I like the winter Olympics just fine. It’s snowy and pretty. There’re hockey players, skiing, and the ICE DANCING! I can tap into all my time spent as a youth watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies (oops, my girly-girl is showing). They didn’t have ice dancing when I was a kid (I don’t think) but I’m sure my skating lessons in elementary school were heading me in that direction. What ever happened to that as my career? I asked my mother that a few years ago.

“Oh, I don’t know. I probably got tired of driving you there,” said mom. Future greatness dashed.

But summer Olympics, there’s what? Track and field. Ohhhhh, ahhhhhhh. Look, I can’t run fast. I’m built for slow. Possible endurance, but slow. I’m the one you want with you in bear country. The thrill of track left with FloJo. She’s not in the Olympics now, is she?

What else you got for Olympic gold? Basketball. Mmmmmmm. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could watch that other times of the year.

Diving? Is a sport you HAVE to watch on slo-mo replay really meant for tv watching? And there’s that *SPLAT* sound which reminds me of too many belly flops from my youth.

Other sports? Did you know there’s trampoline this year? How did a warm-up routine for the REAL SPORTS become a competition in itself? Next, it will be stretching and taping. Although gymnasts might already be doing that on the floor routine. That’s tape they’re waving around, right? How about carbo-loading as a sport? I might like to see that.

I want to like the Olympics. I read about all of you out there glued to your sets, rooting and absorbed. I wish I felt that way.

Olympics, I’m just not that into you.

What am I missing? Is there an Olympic sport that’s awesome this summer? (we’re talking sports, NOT just oogling the hot bods!)

Or, are you secretly like me??

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Posted in events, op-ed