Everyone has a pet peeve or two – you wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t. Lately, I have tried to spend less time on my “peeves” and more time being deeply thankful that I’m of sound enough mind to have peeves in the first place, and to be able to bitch about them openly, from time to time.

This is one of those times.

When in God’s name are they gonna plug up that f****ing hole!??

All the accusations about not following regulations, about being cheap and cutting corners, is a bunch of blah, blah, blah bullshit. I don’t really care who “started it,” I just want it fixed before the Great Barrier Reef is upstaged by “The Gulf of Mutated Wonders.” Besides, I imagine when it’s all said and done BP will be retiring from the oil business and spending the rest of their days in a purgatory of unending community service, sponge bathing pelicans and dolphins with Dawn liquid.

I’m sure you’ve seen the same videos that I have – the ones showing people using human hair, chicken feathers, and hay to absorb bowls of oil – and yet BP chooses to spray some sort of “questionable” chemical into the Gulf which only serves to break the oil up into smaller pools. Big freaking deal.

Waaa-laahh! We now have several smaller masses of ecosystem destroying oil floating around instead of just ONE! Pretty cool, huh? Yeah…no…not so much. All that’s been accomplished is that droves of volunteers are going home sick and the marine life is now being suffocated AND poisoned. Brilliant.

And whose bright idea was it to call James Cameron?? Really?? That’s the best they could come up with? “Well, we tried the mile long pipe thingy, and the superglue didn’t work. “I guess that’s it guys, we’re at our wits end- better call an Oscar winning Hollywood director in here, STAT!” Look BP, it’s like this – we’re sorry about the whole Tea Party thing, but you Brits can be a little uptight and unbending – still, it’s no reason to go f***ing up the Gulf of Mexico. Quit being idiots and get the damn hole plugged up already and try to remember that Mr. Cameron is a “movie director”….it’s make believe.

Everyone wants their dream house, but here’s the problem.

In your vision, you are probably shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue when, really, you need to be pushing your buggy of dreams down the aisles of Wal-Mart.

Just a little reality check is all most folks need. Hey! I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I deserve and would look oh-so-divine driving around in a new BMW Roadster, but when I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and head for the garage in the morning, my Honda Civic just points and laughs. Life is cruel and so are small compact cars.

So, weird analogy aside. My point is, you don’t need to live in the Taj Mahal to be happy. I see these people night after night on House Hunters saying things like, ” Well, my husband and I just had a baby so we’re having to sell this cramped 5,000 square foot bungalow and move into something a little bigger.” Really?? What did you have exactly? A baby rhinoceros? How much room do 3 people need? Wow, glad I stocked up on sympathy cards. How has this couple not killed each other under such confined living conditions. I guess the “baby” needed more than just the east wing.

I think only Americans (and maybe a few lords and sheiks) feel the need to live in a structure large enough to house a jet. The rest of the world seems to get by on a lot less – god only knows how. If you’re NOT among those of us who think that perhaps we’ve gotten a little out of hand with this “must have” kind of mentality, here’s a good rule of thumb…

Your house is too big when a band of gypsies can move in undetected, and you don’t catch on until you open the fridge one day and say, “Who drank all the milk?” Why the gypsies of course! Because if your house wasn’t so freaking big, you might have noticed that your son refers to the old guy with the bandana, as ‘daddy’. I’m just saying – it’s either time to downsize or get a better security system.

I have faith that before long – with our European thinkin’ president – we will all be living in flats, driving scooters, and all of our appliances will be energy star rated. I for one will welcome it – along with the 6 weeks, government endorsed, paid holiday. :)

Cheerio!

Hmm…..medical scare….that pretty much amounts to being told that all the crappy things you’ve been doing to your body have finally caught up with you.

The doctors give you the “I told you so” look before they coldly announce that your colon is now the size of a tube sock and your going to have to live out your life with a bag of shit tied to your waist.

My Grandfather, for example, who was 80 years old and had been smoking since his early 20’s, seemed genuinely horror-struck when given the news that he had lung cancer. Now, no one wants to actually hear, outloud, news like that – but you just can’t suck down a liter of tar into your lungs every day without knowing that there will be consequences. I’m almost certain the tooth fairy is made up – but I know for a fact – there is no lung fairy. And who really wants to wake up with that under their pillow.

I have heard more times than I can count….”I would rather do what I want and die happy”…..really??? Because I’ve yet to hear any reports of people on their death bed so giddy, that they can’t rip the feeding tube out fast enough. Fifty may sound like a good age to die when your 20, but not so much when your 43 – “well okay, I guess I’ve got 7 years to wrap things up then its off to the funeral home!”

My advice, to anyone who cares to hear it, is this…….Maybe we should exercise and eat better just on the off-chance that our bodies hold out until we’re 90. A client of mine, who is only 59 and admittedly has never eaten a vegetable, just found out she has 16 polyps in her colon and now she’s out tearing up the lawn like a billy goat.

For me, I’m going to keep doing the best I can, and when at some ‘undetermined age’ I find that I have a med-alert panic button strapped to my wrist or when I can’t leave the house without a diaper bag – That’s when stepping out into a busy intersection will be the right thing to do.

My “brand new” mattress, merely 6 months old, has already a perfect mold of my body in the fetal position, forever imprinted in it’s $800 high tech pillow top.

At night, I cautiously sit on the edge of my bed before rolling into position. It’s a little like sleeping in a Birkenstock sandal that has been worn for years. Great for walking but not so great for sleeping – turning over is out of the question – once situated snugly in my mattress sarcophagus there’s no getting me out. I’m like a million year old femur waiting to be dug out of a piece of limestone.

Why is it so hard for Americans to get comfortable in bed? How much money is spent in the course of a lifetime searching for a mattress that won’t leave us feeling like we spent the entire night spelunking? The Japanese sleep on the floor for Christ’s sake and they’re fine! Even their old people have the posture of an uptight librarian. I may not be the size of an umbrella stand, but do I really need to float weightlessly in space in order to get a good nights sleep?

It’s not like the average American is a 750 lb. sea dwelling mammal that needs to rest upon a platform of space age foam lest they be crushed beneath their own body weight. Can it really be that difficult to find ample support without looking to NASA for a solution? And quite frankly, I can’t afford anymore “free trial” periods. Oh, It’s free getting to your house, but not so much when you’re sending it back. Shipping was so steep on the last one, I took a dead bird I found in my yard and rubbed it all over the mattress then called customer service and said – “Um, yes I think I was sent a mattress that someone died on…. so……I’m just gonna send this one back.

I am now of the opinion that mattresses in general are just unnatural – our bodies are obviously not meant for for sleeping under such artificial conditions. I’ve decided to take the “organic” approach. I now sleep on a bed of hay that is situated between two modern contemporary night stands. The opposite side of the room is balanced quite nicely by a large dresser made completely of twigs, and held together by twine. I call it…..’barnyard chic’… and I think I may be on to something.