Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Oh My My"

"Oh My My," Ringo Starr

When you're a kid, Ringo's your Beatle. The name! The nose! The rings! Octopi and submarines!

When you're a kid, you also have questionable taste. I ate pats of butter and pink Betty Crocker icing by the spoonful. I liked Shaun Cassidy. I also loved this song, so I wasn't prepared for how freaking good it actually is when my 7-year-old self recently nudged me to listen in…

Billy Preston pounding on the keys like he's riding a unicorn with a rainbow mane. Ringo and the other drummer (they needed 2!), dancing bears doing the cha cha on the moon. And the saxophone, notes shooting out of my ears and riding the up elevator like a band of angels headed home...

Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Apple Scruffs"

"Apple Scruffs," George Harrison

I definitely hail from the same lineage as the Apple Scruffs, the quirky group of fans who'd wait all night in the winter for a glimpse of the Beatles. Even when invited in, most times they preferred to hang outside, on the edges like shy cats in half-shadows. Not to be confused with the fans who stole Paul's pants, or groupies like Penny Lane, these muses were looking at the same thing that Mona Lisa was, if you can imagine Leonardo a Liverpudlian.



In looking for a video to share I found this demo version that gave me chills. And George sneezes like a happy dog at one point.



P.S. As a kid I also sat in mud puddles (scruff factor 23) and, a few years later, waited every Saturday for my Afghan hound friend from down the street to visit. His name? Apple, of course.

Meezer Monday: Bingie Wonderland

Happiness is a warm size-XXL donut bed, preferably one with a tail… I took this photo about a week or so ago, and I'm so glad I did. Derrick and Bing spent their mornings and late afternoons cuddled together, with one variation or another of Bing using Derrick's tummy/back/chest as a pillow. I'd be sitting on the bed and forget they were there, and then turn around to see something like this. Heaven in Sensurrround, purr-rumbling in that M-at-the-end-of-Om vibration, draped in creme and toasted almond with a chocolate-mocha center.

I don't want to make this all sad, but dang, am I going to miss bedtime with Bing. Every night, unless it was super-hot and humid in the summer, he'd be waiting there for me at my pillow. I'd have to lift up the covers at the exact right height and he'd hunker down after awhile. Sometimes I'd have to put my arm out so he could use it as a little perch for his paws and/or forelegs, and sometimes he'd just sigh all his weight into me in a spooning sort of way, this total surrender move that meant nothing but i love you and we're safe and happy. I know he'll always be in my heart (phew!!!), but there's something about that sigh that's so deliciously weighty and right-now-in-this-world.

Sigh.

This one's for me, 4:35 to 6:06:

Meezer Monday: It's Nice to Share

I originally bought the vanilla malted bumper car bed, above left, for Bing, but the minute Derrick saw it he shoved his whitey mammoth a$$ into it for a perfect fit. Then I thought for sure Bing, an under-the-covers cuddler, would take to the Cat Snuggie, which is like a giant pita bread with French cuffs. But within seconds of its leopard-spotted arrival, there was Derrick all mother's milking it, howling and whining when anyone got near.

There's all kindsa nuttiness going on in the above scenario, but the big takeaway for me is that he's actually utilizing/enjoying both of these items. This is especially important to me lately as I recently threw away a bunch of stuff that, although costly, had been worn less than a handful of times. Or could no longer be worn. Like, for example, the giant fluffy white coat I got on ebay that only a yeti or, possibly, Patti LaBelle could pull off. I swear, once I threw that particular behemoth out, my closet sighed.

And if anyone's wondering about Bing, well, he didn't show interest in either of the beds, so it's not like Derrick's the bully at school stealing everyones Michael Jordans. At least I think it's not like that.


Is it me, or does she look totally psyched and may have even kicked his lazy a$$ to the curb?



That's the way it is, troolie-oolie-oolie is...



Because I save the best for last:

High Apple Pie

OK, so I stole a kid's artwork. It's not what you think. Earlier this week, yes, I swiped this from the rec center in the gym where I take Pilates in the mornings. I love this room--one spring there was a bird family nesting in the skylight, and there are tons of inspirational signs all over the place... TEAM=Together Everyone Achieves More! And #1 on the list of How To Deal With a Bully, Use your indoor voice and stay calm.

So, this one was sort of shoved in the back of the sink, right in the exact spot where last semester languished another work of pee-wee art, a diagram of a worm that I coveted all summer long. Every time I saw it I thought, Oh no, I can't take some kid's art...until one day I found it had been thrown in the trash, and by then it was too late. Not this time, baby! Here's my loot in all its pink, popsicle-sticked glory.

Though I have to wonder--do you think he or she was finished? I mean, there's so much room, for success, for failure, endless possibilities after the second affirmation. What to fill that space with?

No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful./Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful??

Or how 'bout... All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece but not too much?

However you fill in your pink blank, I often think of something I recently read in (pretty sure it was) SELF magazine... they say that willpower is like a muscle--the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets...and if you're about to eat that ginormous piece of Death By Chocolate from Pinisi Bakery or tenderly light that cigarette and bring its cool, soft whiteness to your lips, you're supposed to contract your abs, which somehow is supposed to send some tough-guy message to your brain and heighten your resolve.

All good, but I take back the part about Death By Chocolate. Just freakin' eat it.



You can have a town, why don't you take it?



Fight it, baby! Red! And! White! Pinstripes! And! A! Red! Tie!

Meezer Monday: A Bushel and a Pec

What do y'all think of Anderson Cooper? I actually stopped watching him after his coverage of the earthquake in Haiti, not because I don't think he's good, but for fear I might see his biceps again. Do you remember them? It was if I couldn't look away, like Cindy Brady staring at the red light in the studio on the quiz show. I couldn't understand why the camera would linger on his arms like that all Entertainment Tonight-y, when people were dead and dying and everyone in need of help, but all you see is the arms, making me think of turkey drumsticks, which I don't eat, or even a giant surgically enhanced breast. It's not like it was his fault or anything, but it was like we shouldn't be focusing on the results of multiple strength-training work-outs when the world's heart was breaking for the lives affected by this disaster.

As it turns out, other folks found the arms, uh, remarkable, too. Maybe not in the exact same way, but check out this article in the fashion section of The New York Times.

Anyway, so today, when I randomly came across the above photo, I had to figure out what was up. I found out that Anderson Cooper is Gloria Vanderbilt's son, and that he has a photo album on his website devoted to pets named after him. And that this photo went viral and he thought it was funny, and dang if they don't have the same nose.