In which we learn how far ShallowGal will go for a snickers

When ShallowGal first moved into her neighborhood nine years ago she was a little suspicious. Maybe even a lot suspicious. Because her new neighborhood reminded her of a little place called Stepford, CT. No, that's too harsh. Maybe not Stepford. Maybe just that town on The X-files where the giant arms come out at night and swallow anything that isn't perfect.

Within hours of the moving truck pulling away, a dozen neighbors had stopped by with plates of cookies, cakes and advice. (1) Children frolicked on perfectly manicured lawns before coming in to freshly home cooked meals. ShallowGal had apparently moved to 1954.

But a month after moving in, SG discovered her new neighborhood's best feature. The high school homecoming parade. With candy. Free fricking candy.

Parades demand tradition. For eight years Serendity and her crew have come over. First we raid the bag collection. Then we walk to the corner where we engage in another tradition, the yearly debate about where to watch to ensure maximum candy.

The parade starts precisely at 5 PM. First the marching band marches past but they're busy holding instruments and flags. Thus they have no candy to throw. So even though they're impressive musically, they get this reaction:

Sephora bags are sturdy and the perfect size for collecting candy.
Also, interesting trivia: we always end up on this corner on Presidential election years.

Then the good stuff happens. First the Seniors drive by. SG yells "Seniors rule." And the seniors throw extra tootsie rolls in our direction.

Once the Seniors have passed come the Juniors. "Juniors kick Senior ass." The Juniors lob handfuls of little milky ways our way.

Next are the sophomores. "We love the sophomores," we yell, and are rewarded with peanut butter cups.

Then the freshmen come and because the seniors have since turned the corner, and SG didn't bring her thesaurus, we recycle. "Freshmen rule!" And they do, since they have brought skittles.

The crew team floats by (2) and SG screams "Crew is the best team!" Which they are because they have tootsie pops.

Then a small Miata carrying four students holding a sign that says YOUNG CONSERVATIVES cruises by. And there's a giant McCain sign on each side of the car.

Everyone looks at each other wondering what to do. And ShallowGal yells "Hooray for Young Conservatives!" and for her trouble receives several starlight mints.(3)

And then PCSguy said, and I quote, "you are such a fucking candy whore."

Now ShallowGal may be many, many things, but a candy whore? Actually if asked to make a list, it would probably look like this:

1. Candy whore
2. Mother
3. Blogger
4. Wife (Wife was #3 before someone impugned SG's good name)(4)
   

After the parade a neighbor approached ShallowGal and said "I was so impressed with Jake. He didn't cheer for the young conservatives just to get candy." In other words, ShallowGal is not just a candy whore but an outed candy whore. (5)

She looks sweet and will share ALL her starlight mints.
But don't even think of asking for something chocolate.

ShallowGal may be a candy whore but
at least she isn't going to insist on bringing her candy to bed tonight.

1) One such piece of advice; when Jake turns five he has to join the swim team. Jake was 18 months old at the time.
2) Dude. I didn't even realize that awesome bit of ironic punnery until the editing stage.
3) Although SG has it on good authority that John McCain prefers Werther's Originals.
4)So SG is actually not 'many, many' things. She's just 'some' things. That's so sad.
5) In my own defense, I NEVER would have cheered if I knew they were throwing starlight mints.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Weekend Edition.

I don't care what PCSguy says.

I'm 99% sure that is not the real Theodore Roosevelt. (1)

1) I am, however, only 92% sure that's really Noa.

ShallowGal debates the merits of an oligarchy during a post-Bush administration

No, I'm totally kidding. (1) We're going to discuss Paris Hilton's new reality show. Eventually. There's a lot of back story to cover first.

See last week ShallowGal and her friend Alicia had dinner at Pia's house. SG calls Pia her pretty friend. (2) Pia's been SG's go-to friend for years; even if weeks or months go by between conversations, Pia will always answer a distress call with "What can I do?" Answers have included such massive favors as "watch my kids while I go to the Bahamas."

ShallowGal occasionally gets to be the helpful friend. Once ShallowGal watched Pia's dog for a week. The dog-sitting was PCSguy's idea, his ploy to get a family dog. However (as any mother would predict) despite the many promises by the posse, all care of the dog fell upon ShallowGal.

Quelle surprise.

But in true ShallowGal fashion, the dog was walked, fed and at the end of the week returned home. Whereupon Pia received an email explaining that we could not dog sit again in the future as Noa had become "allergic."

Nice. (3)

Another time was when Pia's husband, who SG likes to call Adam (4), slipped on the ice and broke his leg. Not only did ShallowGal show up at the hospital with a turkey sandwich for Pia's lunch but when the orthopedic surgeon arrived to discuss the impending operation and asked if there were any questions, ShallowGal asked "will he be able to play the violin afterward?"

(Would you believe the surgeon had never heard that joke before? What the hell kind of medical school did he go to? And Adam did not consider this guy's complete lack of a sense of humor a reason to find a new surgeon.)

Pia was the first on the scene when Phil died, the first at the hospital (5) when Eli was born. She sets the standard to which ShallowGal holds potential friends.

What does this have to do with Paris Hilton? I have no idea. Damn back story got me all confused. Plus why is it called the back story when I told it first? It should be called the front story.

Wait, I got it. Seven months ago, ShallowGal applied to be on Paris Hilton, My New BFF. Oddly enough MTV passed. Their loss. ShallowGal makes for excellent reality television, all unshowered and pajama clad.

But ironically this show premiered the night that ShallowGal arrived home from her drunken fete. And SG realized how much she appreciates her real BFFs.

First Paris kicked four girls out based on a lousy first impression. (6) Screw that. In Shallow-land, you get many chances to make a first impression, even if that's technically impossible.

Then Paris required her new friends to get radical makeovers. Dude. You can hang with me no matter how your hair looks. Actually, I'm a huge believer in the worse you look, the better I look.

Piss Paris off and you're headed home. Her parting words? "Our friendship is over. TTYN." Harsh. Way worse than "my kid is now allergic to your dog." Right?

Paris Hilton's words of wisdom: Best friends should trust each others opinions. ShallowGal's opinion? Paris Hilton makes good television but SG will hold on the the friends she already has.

1) SG doesn't know what, if anything, that even means
2)Mostly because Pia instructed SG to call her the pretty friend. ALL ShallowGal's friends are gorgeous.
3) I had completely forgotten this story until Pia reminded me somewhere after our third bottle of wine. Also, observant readers will notice that on long posts SG has moved back to the annoying habit of constantly shifting from the first to the third person and back. Deal with it.
4) Luckily it's his name.
5) Looking, PCSguy likes to say, like Neiman Marcus exploded.
6) Granted one of the girls saw the Virgin America sign and exclaimed "we're going to London!" so maybe Paris wasn't too far off base.

ShallowGal's get rich quick scheme

ShallowGal's been watching the problems on Wall Street. And the effects on her family's 401K. Either PCSguy is going to have to work until he's ninety or ShallowGal needs a plan.

And one thing ShallowGal can always be counted on for is having a plan. (1)(1.5)

ShallowGal is going to open a pole dancing gym. No you perv, get your mind out of the gutter. A classy pole dancing gym, for women to get exercise and have fun.

And because when SG can do this, PCSguy will ensure her financial future.
Photo stolen from these guys.

This is no ass backwards plan, for your information, although it should result in ShallowGal having a very nice ass. Like any prudent business woman, ShallowGal started with a little market research; in this case, a survey. Goddess fitness in Bethesda offers a trial class and SG invited Lolita and Decidedly Right to go next week to try a class. DR told SG to stop acting like a whore, but Lolita was in.

That gives us a 50% interest rate in pole dancing classes in women between 35 and 45. (2)

ShallowGal's Northern Virginia town has 20,000 women over the age of 18. Do the math. 10,000 women are wandering Burke, Virginia right now wishing they could find some place to learn to pole dance.

If four different tae kwon do studios can exist within 3 square miles, a pole dancing gym should be a license to print money. And ShallowGal will be laughing all the way to the bank.

1. Another is SG will NEVER let you drink alone.
1.5) Another is overuse of prepositions. A third is laziness when it comes to renumbering footnotes during the editing process.
2. Math is totally SG's strong point.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: ShallowGal's front yard, a retrospective

ShallowGal's yard, Saturday, September 27th.
The first such sign in her ultra right wing neighborhood.
Much hoo-hah commences.

ShallowGal's yard Sunday, September 28th.
Something seems to be missing.



SG's yard, October 4rth.
Yes, it took a week. Obama yard signs are hard to come by.



SG's yard: October 5th, 7 am.
WTF?



October 5th 7:01 am
ShallowGal admits defeat. She is not meant to own a yard sign.

PS: I will be off-line from sundown tonight until Friday morning in observance of Yom Kippur. To all my Jewish friends: G'mar chatimah tovah. May you be sealed for a good year in the Book of Life. xoxo, Amy

Gwen Ifill better watch out

Although ShallowGal has no clue what she wants to do when she grows up, Noa has narrowed down her career options.

She's either going to be a rock star or the Vice Presidential debate moderator. (1)

Debate moderator is actually a job tailor made for Noa, as there is little in life she likes more than asking questions. One day I actually counted how many questions (2) Noa asked; the answer, a mind numbing 278. Assuming she sleeps 10 hours a night, that works out to 19.8 questions an hour, or one every THREE minutes. All day, every day. Getting paid to ask questions? Icing on the cake.

When Noa heard that Gwen Ifill had broken her ankle, she immediately started working on the questions she would ask, should her presence be required in St. Louis.

1. Have you ever been to Russia? What about China? Did you like it? Did you bring me anything?
   
2. How many cars do you have?
   
3. Is today a good day for a car wash? What about a lemonade stand?
4. Do you like to play football? Do you watch football? Who's your favorite team?
5. Do you have a dog?
   

The makers of Palin bingo would need to do a monster re-write for the answers you'd get to these questions.

Never one to be left out, Eli has a few questions of his own:

1. What's your roof made of? (3)
2. Do you know Blues Clues dad, Steve? Is he nice or bad?
3. Do you have any gum?

1. She's no idiot, my little girl. It's a pretty cushy job, what with 1460 days off every four years.
2. Full questions only, not just phrases ending with a question mark like "mom?"
3.It took a few minutes to figure out the roof fixation but finally determined he must have read The Three Little Pigs at school. Or he's planning a career in shingles.

Less Words Wednesday ~ Eli's first homework assignment

Assignment: Create a poster about your family. (1)

1) Not entirely sure how Mickey or Super Why are related to him.