Friday, September 21, 2007

Beware the Quiet Ones




Kennedy brings up an interesting point: quiet people are some of the most misunderstood people out there. My neighbors and acquaintances have no idea what I can get up to. In so many minds, "quiet" equals "prude," and as the cousins can attest, this is not necessarily true. Something else they can attest to is the fact that this misconception can come in handy. Back when I was a teenager, all the parents considered me the good child. So well-behaved, so respectful. And anytime the girls wanted to go somewhere questionable, all it took was the mere mention of my name.


Parent: You want to go where? A video arcade? With all those weirdos?
Cousin: I just want to play some Pac-Man. (Yes, this was the 80s.)
Parent: Absolutely not!
Cousin: But Esmerelda is going.
Parent: Oh. (Pause) Well, then, all right. She'll keep you out of trouble.

Little did they know that as soon as we were dropped off, I was the one pointing out how much more fun we'd have going to the pizza parlor across the street, the one popular with the older high school boys. The boys who smoked and had fake I.D.s.
So yes, I may be quiet, but I'm still a diva.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Cousin Esmeralda Emerges



Darling Esmeralda has emerged from her cocoon of family and work to join us here. YAY! Time to break out the tequila and have a party. The shyest of the cousins, Esmeralda was able to duck and cover from the worst of Aunt Fern's rampages on morality. However, she did her share of stirring up trouble. It was that she was seldom caught. That little job fell to Scarlet and me. I think I enjoyed the punishment and Scarlet didn't care one way or the other!

Katie and Isabella generally were too busy laughing and thinking up the next worst thing we could all get up to. Like the time we hijacked Uncle Ted's truck and drove to the lake......

Nowadays, no-one can believe just how wicked we vixens were. I doubt Esmeralda's nice neighbors today could fathom her drinking moonshine and riding around with her cousins in an 'appropriated' vehicle, when none of us had a driver's permit, let alone a license!

We Diva's laugh and say we had to survive the upbringing of Aunt Fern. Some days I wonder how our extended family survived the onslaught of the visiting nieces!

Love
Kennedy.

How to Not Write Your First Blog Entry



The hot, margarita-soaked days of summer have come to an end. No more lounging on the deck, half-naked, reading trashy magazines. No more ignoring the four year-old as he lugs water from the kitchen to his sandbox, leaving vast puddles in his wake. No more calling the husband during his ninety-minute commute to inform him that if he wants dinner, he'll need to stop and pick some up.
No more making the cousins do all the blog work.
So with the coming of autumn, I have vowed to be a better woman. A more productive woman. It's been a struggle, and though I haven't actually produced much, I have figured out how to not write a blog entry:
1. Wave goodbye to the four-year old as the big yellow bus carries him off to preschool. You've got just over three hours to write something brilliant.
2. Wave to your next-door neighbor as she gets into her minivan. Notice how skinny she is, despite having given birth to three children. Speculate that she is probably one of the those size 0 women you've heard about. Look down at yourself and see that lounging on the deck has done nothing positive for the size of your ass. A little walk is definitely in order. At eight o'clock in the morning, it's already hot and muggy. It will only get worse. Now is obviously the best time to do something about that ass.
3. Go back into your house long enough to put on walking shoes. Start off briskly, arms pumping. Begin to slow down a bit when you feel that first cramp. Pause to chat with a neighbor you haven't seen all summer. Say hello to your favorite tree. Stop by the river and lament over how low it is. Allow fifty minutes to pass in this manner.
4. Return home. You haven't walked in weeks and your body is stiff. In fact, it's crying out for some relaxing yoga. You could do a short session, but you feel that you deserve a longer one. Pop in the DVD and choose the full-body, forty-five minute routine.
5. It's now nine thirty-five. That banana you ate almost three hours ago just isn't going to cut it. Go into the kitchen and dish out some yogurt and add a big handful of granola. Normally, you'd bolt the yogurt and go about your business, but today is special. Take the food downstairs and out on the patio. Sit down and slowly eat, savoring the individual flavors, the tart dried cherry, the sweet honey. Look at your bowl. Really see how the cinnamon becomes tiny little brown specks in the pure white of the yogurt. Marvel at the beauty of a sunflower seed.
6. Finish eating and visually scan the backyard. For the first time all summer, notice your hostas. They must have bloomed at some point, because there are dead flowers sticking out of their middles. The leaves are yellow and wilted. The rest of the garden is just as bad. The summer-long drought that allowed you to spend most of your days outside has practically ruined the yard. You haven't given a rat's ass about this state of affairs all season, but now you decide to care. Unroll the hose, turn on the faucet and start hand-watering the plants. Halfway through, remember that it's supposed to rain later this afternoon and for the next three days. Brush aside the thought; weather predictions never come true. Spend another twenty minutes thoroughly drenching the plants.
7. Put away the hose and go inside. Turn on your computer. Look down and notice there's a huge streak of dirt on your leg. The school bus will be returning in forty-five minutes. You obviously can't allow the driver to see you like this. Go upstairs and take a leisurely shower.
8. Freshly cleansed, you now have twenty minutes until your child arrives. Go back downstairs and sit in front of the computer. Open a new document. Stare at the blank screen for ten minutes. Come up with a few ideas and immediately dismiss them as the trite and half-witted notions that they are. What would the cousins think?
9. Decide that this is obviously the wrong time to start blogging. Become certain that next week will be the week that the ideas and words will flow. Close the blank document.
10. Spend the remaining ten minutes of your free time reading other peoples' blogs.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Urgent! Aunt Fern Alert!



We Divas need some help distracting Aunt Fern! There have been whispers going around her small town about her darling nieces and we would like your help in distracting her.

Please send us some of your problems to solve in her Dear Aunt Fern column. Aunt Fern loves nothing more than sticking her nose, er, helping others in a charitable and godly way and if y'all can keep her busy enough, she'll stay out of our hair a while longer.

(It's either that, or we'll have to start visiting with her on a rotating basis and that can just lead to all sorts of mischief and mayhem! Katie spiked her tea the last time she visited and poor Aunt Fern had a dreadful case of the sing-alongs!)

Love

Kennedy

Love, Wonder Women.......



Just a little something I came "ahem" across today, and thought of Cousin Scarlet. We all have our icons, those bastions of sexuality. For me, it's Patrick Stewart's butt and Angelina Jolie's lips.
Admittedly, I did have a very warped childhood, and after seeing Patrick Stewart in I, Claudius, I had a very severe case of lust. I was twelve at the time. Sejanus, Stewart's character, if anyone out there has either read Grave's book or watched the BBC's adaptation, was NOT a very nice character. It didn't worry me at all. Actually thrilled me in rather a disturbing way. Ahem. I think Scarlet might have quite a bit of insight into that.......

Perhaps I should find a more modern icon? However, Hollywoodland falls far short of my lurid fantasies. Where does the stuff of dark fantasy come from and why do we need it so? And don't be coy and pretend we don't need the dark side. How do we explain the fascination with the Vampires, the Werewolves, the shapeshifters and things that go bump in the night? We all need something a little darker, a little meatier, something that makes the fine hair on the back of our necks prickle....just a little.

I'll keep looking for that frisson of fear and eroticism. It's a heady blend, but I'm not twelve anymore.
Kisses,
Kennedy.