Manolo for the Big Girl Fashion, Lifestyle, and Humor for the Plus Sized Woman.

You know you’ve had a rough weekend when the best thing you can say is no one threw up directly ON you.

True, it makes for a pleasant change from last weekend when I was not so fortunate, but I woke up on the wrong side of every bed west of the Mississippi this morning (in the I’m-Very-Grumpy way, not the I’m-Gonna-Need-Some-Penicillin way) and my situation has not improved in the three hours since I was rousted from my peaceful slumber by the lovelorn cries (okay, technically lovelorn telephone calls) of a very nice former Golden Gloves boxer with whom I struck up an acquaintance over the summer.

The Man with the Golden Glove has the dubious honor of being the only man who has ever carried me down a flight of stairs as an adult without using any type of complex winch and pulley system. Impressive, yes, but it does not excuse a telephone call before nine in the morning. Still, he’s very sweet and has been hit in the head an awful lot so I did my best not to be openly hostile, which I think is as much as can reasonably be expected before my feet have hit the floor.

THEN I stumbled down to the kitchen to fix myself some cornbread and a restorative only to discover the fresh butter I got from the lady who sells baggies of various unlabeled dairy products at a little shop down the street tasted like cheese and the memory of an unpleasant scene from yesterday came flooding back.

See, someone who shall remain nameless started rooting around in my cheese cage (not a euphemism) and decided my carefully arranged cheeses should all go live together in the refrigerator because apparently this person was raised by wolves/howler monkeys/some other animals that don’t understand the importance of not messing with a woman’s Camembert without express written consent and thus are to be pitied and very occasionally killed.

Unbeknownst to me, in attempt to right an egregious wrong and get that weird vein in my forehead to stop pulsing profanities in Morse code, the person who was raised by wolves/howler monkeys/etc decided to put everything back EXCEPT he took the previously mentioned fresh dairy butter (which, it should be noted, tasted of nothing but baby angels and cream) and put it in the same cubby of the cheese cage as my most rank and resplendent soft-ripening cheeses.

So, despite it being before noon here on The Wrong Coast, I am calling this day a wash and have decided to spend it in the Texas Room with my best friend, Sweet Lady Internet.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a Lazy Poll Monday and I’ve been greatly remiss in responding to your comments, so let’s give it a go. You know the rules: Anything (almost) goes. Tell me what you’ve been doing, what’s on your mind, survey the MftBG readers for answers to life’s mysteries. Anything you want, just keep it clean.

Ahh yes, Lazy Poll Monday, from the same people who brought you Hmm Wonder What THAT Pill Is Saturday and One More Couldn’t Hurt Sunday. That’s right, try Lazy Poll Monday for all your Lazy Poll needs.

I jest, I jest.

First of all I’m 99% sure that pill at the bottom of my suitcase was monkey hormone and secondly, the most exciting thing I did last night was put cantaloupe chunks in my iced tea instead of lemon. It was not –as you might imagine– an unqualified success, but hey, I’m a rebel.

Actually, I don’t even know why I call these open forum days Lazy Polls.

I always end up writing a ton more in the comments than I would in a regular post, but hey, some of you crazy people have been with the site since it was a mere glimmer in Manolo’s highball glass so despite having the natural  nurturing instinct of a ball of chicken wire, I really like to know what’s going on with my readers.

As for me, tonight I’m going to the 100th anniversary concert of one of my favorite organs.

Of course that actually means I’ll be spending the evening in a cocktail dress trying not to make organ jokes in church (which is different than any other time I’m in church because of the cocktail dress) but I’ve heard there might be lobster bisque so I’m totally there.

So sock it to me babies, tell me what’s going on in your glammy (or not so glammy) lives.

If you’ve got a question, ask away. If you’re a lurker –I know you’re out there– delurk for a moment to say hi.

If you’re a regular commenter, tell us what’s happening in your neck of the virtual woods, then check back in tomorrow for the conclusion of the jewelry series plus whatever nonsense I deem fit.

Oh, beeteedubs (professional bloggers are required to put in cutesy slang like that on a regular basis or else they take away our 13 gigs of hi-lariously captioned kitten pictures) you guys have been killing me –in the good, non-Stranger Danger way– on Twitter and Facebook recently, so thanks for keeping me entertained.

We’re coming up on fall and it’s time to wave bye-bye to summer. And as the seasons turn (in places where they really do turn; this summer decided to mostly give our fair city a miss and only showed up for a few random days), I am curious to know what it means to you.

Is it the moment when you heave a sigh of relief or terror that your offspring are springing off to school? Is it the time to buy woolen clothes and pack away your linens? Does this time of year herald the start or the end of a favorite food, activity, or form of entertainment?

For me, the biggest things are in the television and culinary end of things. Burn Notice and White Collar are over for the time being (and without spoiling it I absolutely need to scold the writers of both shows for where they left us hanging!), Caprica will be back next month, and I’m getting the birthday present of a whole new series: Top Chef Desserts. On the food end, my favorite gourd squashes are starting to show up at my local friendly grocery store. And I need to get a new pair of boots, something I am both looking forward to and dreading in equal parts. I love boots, but my feet are not easy to fit and it’s getting harder and harder to find something I want at a price I can afford that will actually go on over my foot.

So there’s what the upcoming change in season means to me. How’s about you?

As I stumbled down the stairs this am in my usual desperate search for caffeine… well, there really wasn’t much else on my – for lack of a better term at that point – mind. My one thought was “COFFEE!!! COFFEE!!!” and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Once I got the coffee, my one thought was a familiar one that I have most mornings these days: “I really have turned into my Aunt Louise.”

No, really, the very first time my brothers and I saw a rockhopper penguin,

we all immediately agreed that it resembled nothing so much as Aunt Louise before her first cup of coffee in the morning.

Yeah. That’s now me in the morning. I get up, look scary – yet oddly adorable – make coffee, grab a nosh after the coffee (darlings, if I attempt to cook before caffeinating myself, I would probably set the entire house ablaze and be entirely too dazed to save myself), and sit down to check my email. After that I can slowly ease myself into life

This morning, however, I had a third thought, which is pushing it for me before I’m properly caffeinated. I wondered how my fellow Big Girls wake up in the morning. Do you have a ritual? Something you need to do before you face the world? Is your morning face less terrifying than mine?

Hello lambchops, sorry I went AWOL yesterday but for some reason I couldn’t log on to the server for more than a second. I suspect SOMEONE –I’m not naming any names Karl Lagerfeld— got a little upset re: my UTTER PANTS-WETTING GLEE that Germany lost to Spain (in accordance with the prognoctopus) and sent his evil internet minions to attack my poor sweet laptop.

Anyhoodle, as you probably know, it’s Couture in Paris right now, and I just about dropped my basket when I saw that Gaultier had TURBANS and FUR and I know some of you hate turbans and the rest of you hate fur but I loooooove a good turban and an accessory that once had a mom.

siiiiigh

So I know it’s a little late in the week, but we didn’t do our weekly check in and I miss the “us time” so what’s going on my little honey mustards? I am delighted to report that internet neighbor Muscato has returned to us after a long and mysterious absence and all is right in the world. Don’t leave us again, darling!