The Seventh Pet Of Christmas

It took 22 pictures, a half a box of treats and I almost resorted to a bottle of super glue to hold them still. Their names are Masson, as Santa, Jailee, as Mrs. Clause and Big Diesel, the elf.

The Sixth Pet Of Christmas

This is D.J., the ½ Serta sheep. I live in Georgia Where Buck Tooth Freak Nuggets Go To Breed.

The Fifth Pet Of Christmas

My depraved one.

The Fourth Pet Of Christmas

I could not get the dog to sit still so I had to use my black-footed ferret Stuffy.

The Third Pet Of Christmas

Don't let her fool you. She purred the whole time I was taking these. She's such an attention whore.

The Second Pet Of Christmas

Nothing says 'Christmas At Our House' quite like the arrival of the Angry Christmas Squirrel.

The First Pet Of Christmas

I want to thank everyone who entered. As I said last week, having looked over other blog contests, this one required not only creativity but in some cases, a lot of work. So I really appreciate it because I know how high busy you all are.

All these photos are being posted anonymously and if there was an email enclosed with the submissions, I've edited it and included it under the photo. Keep in mind that the lucky winner gets a Maserati and second place gets round trip airfare to my bank account.

Check back every day for the next 11 days to see the rest of the finalists.

The first Pet of Christmas comes all the way from Australia.
If an Italian Greyhound could say 'fuck off' he would have.

Stairway To Heaven

When I was young, I attempted to ski. This is me in Val D'Isère, France, circa 1856. And way before I discovered hair dye.
I was afraid of ski lifts. You're strapped into an open cage hanging over mountains without a parachute? I gamely took some ski lessons and felt I was ready for the Winter Olympics. Because I'm not right in the head.

I look like I'm shooting a commercial and now that I think about it, Suzy Chapstick STOLE MY LIFE. This above shot is my favorite one. I would like to point out that in every picture I'm doing nothing but posing. I'm pretty sure that was the best part of the whole trip. Because it certainly wasn't those ski clothes from the Shin Dynasty.

A few years later my sister and I went to Switzerland to ski. My sister was a great skier. She did all the pistes noir while I was on the pistes pink, where 9 month old babies whizzed by me because they're notoriously competitive and really, really mean. Bored, I attempted a harder piste. Because I had taken three lessons.

I was eventually taken off that mountain by the ski patrol, on a stretcher, in fucking Switzerland, the neutral country that was trying to KILL ME.

Later my sister said, "You know, I saw this blond girl up there and she had one leg up the mountain and one leg down the mountain and I thought, Man, what a retard; get off the slopes before you hurt someone.

I tore a ligament and had a full leg cast on for like a hundred years.

When the cast came off, I was afraid to put weight on the bad leg. So of course I did what you're not supposed to do and put all my weight on the good leg, because you know, I'm a genius. I did that for so long that eventually all my friends were making fun of me. I would walk down stairs one step at a time, like a two year old. Shut up.

Then I got a big job. When I showed up for rehearsal, the director gave me a tour of the cabaret and showed me the stage, where I was supposed to glide down a staircase with a two and a half foot tall headdress in a skin tight gold sequined dress.

"Is there any other way to get down those stairs? I asked. Yeah, Francis Ford Coppola can airlift you in a chopper, like in Apocalypse Now, and deposit your ostrich-feathered ass at the bottom of the stairs. The director did not say that. Sadly.

I went home and told my mother that I wouldn't be able to take the job. She said I had to immediately go to La Chappelle de St. Rita, the patroness of impossible cases. Now, I'm not a religious person and abhor all organized religion, believing it is the opiate of the masses. I am, however, a spiritual person and yes, there is a huge difference between the two. Spirituality does not require a building nor a particular deity to worship. I was brought up Catholic but thought it was bullshit from the age of 13. But I was desperate. I went to the bullshit Church.

I prayed that if St. Rita fixed my leg, I would give her 200 francs a month (forty dollars) for the duration of the show, which was seven months. I came home and tried to figure out how I was going to tell my bosses the truth. I had already signed the contracts. The French government was in the process of issuing me a permis de travail, a work permit.

That night I watched my sister get ready for a date. I sat on the edge of her bed and started swinging my right leg, the good one. And then I started involuntarily swinging the left one, the bad one, and it didn't lock up. I stood up and walked to the front door. I went from our second floor apartment down to the first floor. The doctors who had told me that I had bone fragments floating in my knee were apparently upstaged by St. Rita.

This is me at the finale of the show which I did seven days a week, three shows on the weekend, two during the week.

That's me with the giant headdress sitting on that guy's knee. I kept my word and gave 200 francs a month for the duration of the show. One month before my contract expired I was in the chapel and noticed that the 'candle guy' was there. All churches have votives and metal boxes where you can put the money for an offering. I saw the man open the box, take out the money and then lock it up. All that time I had been giving money to the CANDLE PEOPLE, not St. Rita's. I was really upset until I realized the candle people must have needed it more.

End of chat.

If You Never Want To Have Sex Again, Wear This

From the Bed, Bath and Beyond winter catalog.

I don't care if you live in a snow drift in Antarctica or in Jeffrey Dahmer's freezer, this is just wrong. Sophie Wrap/Throw:
Throw converts into a robe. Includes snap and zipper closure to keep you warm. Also available in camel.

Why not carpeting that converts into a prom dress? Or an area rug that converts into a carport? Or, I don't know, a catalog that converts into a gun to shoot yourself with in case someone buys you this thing?

Very Superstitious, Writing's On The Wall

Seriously, if there was a toll booth on Memory Lane, I’d be bankrupt by now.

I got scoliosis when I was a teenager. I ended up seeing four doctors about it, two said to operate, two said not to. The one who finally convinced us was the one who said that if they didn’t operate I’d be dead by 40 because my ribcage was rotating so fast that it would eventually puncture my lung. For most girls the growth stops on its own. Mine didn't. When I turned 40 I was depressed at that milestone until I remembered that I might have been dead instead. And not the kind of dead that I am when I have sex blog.

The summer before seeing all those doctors my family went to our place in Paris. My grandparents lived about ten minutes away and knew a woman named Marguerite, who was clairvoyant. Marguerite used to visit and scare the crap out of me and my sister. She told us that she got her powers to see into the future from an old cat who showed up at her apartment one night. The cat then turned into a sea captain and told her he was giving her infinite power but she was to pass it on before she died. Then he turned back into a cat.

My mother took me to Marguerite's apartment once. I only went because I was hoping the cat would start talking or listing to starboard. It did not. About a year before Marguerite died, she told Grandmère she could give her the gift of seeing into the future but my grandmother turned her down. I asked her why and she said that she didn't want to know which of her family or friends was going to die and on what day.

One of our American friends, Carole, used to come by Grandmères with her mother and if Marguerite was there, Marguerite would mutter "pauvre Carole" (poor Carole) under her breath. I asked my mother why she was doing that and my mother said that she must have seen something really bad in store for her. Ten years later Carole committed suicide. Pauvre Carole indeed.

My mother would ask Marguerite about my scoliosis and if I was going to be okay. She would put her hands on my back and say to my mother, “She’ll be fine.”

Marguerite would often take my sister and me to La Cimetière de Montmartre, which was close to where we lived, by the big white church on the hill.

Do you think the cat in the Montmartre cemetery photo below could be the sea captain just wandering around? Yeah, me too neither. I always wondered if Marguerite was going to visit the sea captain. If she found his grave, she never mentioned it. Since those days I have always had a fascination with cemeteries. One of the first jokes I ever wrote was:

I got stopped by a cop this morning. He said, “Lady, you can’t park your car here.” And I said, “Oh, like the spaces between these graves are going to be used for something else.”

At one point mom and Grandmère took me to a man who did something called The Laying On Of Handkerchiefs. I can still see the waiting room with all the hopeful and ailing sitting upright in their chairs, fiddling with their jackets, quieting their children as they anxiously waited. They all had handkerchiefs folded into neat piles and placed on their laps. When it was our turn, the man took the handkerchiefs we had brought and did some abracadabra stuff and laid them on my back. I have no idea whether that practice is still going on but since Europeans are particularly steeped in tradition, probably.

My grandmother was a superstitious woman who believed in clairvoyants and cartomanciens, people who can tell the future by reading playing cards. She taught me how to read cards and I made a nice piece of coin off that whenever I was broke because I was really good at it. I actually saved one man from a Sicilian mob hit.

I remember another superstitious trick Grandmère taught us. If we had a dinner guest or a drop-in who wouldn't leave, we took salt and a broom and threw the salt on the floor in front of the entrance and then swept it outside. We used it over and over and over. It never ceased to amaze us that this simple gesture never failed. When I moved to New York, it was a little harder to do since my front door could be seen from the living room, whereas in Paris, the front door was in the entry hall and hidden from the main rooms, where the guests could see us. But I still did it. When I moved to LA it was the end of the Sweeping Salt Trick. Wall to wall carpeting.

End of chat.

Paris, France Montmartre Clairvoyants Cemeteries Cimetiere de Montmartre

L.A. Sign Of The Times #30

Just Couldn't Get It Together

I got nothin'.

I'm still cleaning up from my pity party. There was leftover cake. I also spent a lot of time staring at my shoes. If you are reading this blog for the first time, I realize this sounds strange. If you've read it before, I realize it still sounds strange. Who stares at their shoes all weekend? Or has a party where there is leftover cake?

I'll be back to normal soon. Normal might be too strong a word.

End of chat.