Why, dear children, is this day different from all other days?

Because 78 glorious years ago today, the great and good people of this great nation ratified the lovely, lovely 21st Amendment which repealed the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad 18th Amendment, thus putting an end to Prohibition.

There’s a funny familial story about Prohibition that’s been floating around the Plumcake Family Mythology for nearly 80 years.

Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Yonkers, New York a young Salvation Army officer by the name of Miss Plumcake’s Nana discovered her fun-loving and all-around less stick-in-the-mud younger sister had snuck off to some speakeasy in the city and was dancing the night away. My Nana, who could out-damp even the soggiest of bed coverings, was outraged and her anger was not lessened when she discovered her one good dress –her Confirmation gown– was missing.

Grim but not stupid, Nana did the math, deduced her wicked sister and her heavenly dress were sharing the same airspace.

Nana marched right down to the speakeasy and proceeded to RIP the dress right off of her shameless sister, thus fulfilling her lifelong legacy of ruining everyone’s good time –well, except for the men at the speakeasy I suppose– and adding another chapter to the legend of Miss Plumcake’s family.

The moral of the story is this: Don’t anger a Plumcake woman. Also, if the last words you say to your devoted teenage great-granddaughter are “Have you always been that fat?”, you thereby give up your rights NOT to be talked about publicly and at great length.

Remember, an elephant never forgets.

In honor of the end of Prohibition, and the fact I’m going to have to whittle down my Scotch collection to 3 liters so I can take it across the Mexican border, I thought I’d ask a little booze-themed Big Question.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What one alcoholic beverage would you be unwilling to go the rest of your life without?

After much thoughtful deliberation, I’ve decided upon the humble yet sublime Talisker 18 year-old single malt Scotch. Talisker is the only Scotch made on the Isle of Skye and has in its golden soul the best of both the smokey peat of the Islay malts and the honeyed heather of a Speyside.

It’s not the most expensive or rarest Scotch I own, a bottle of Talisker 18 will set you back less than a hundred dollars, and there are other Scotches I prefer as specimens of one breed or another, but for pure overarching perfection, the Talisker is hard to beat, and, incidentally, is ridiculous (in the good way) on a hot buttered waffle.

Mr. Twistie and I do enjoy daydreaming. Just yesterday we were on the road on a mission that isn’t particularly important to explain and he asked me a question: if we suddenly had stupid amounts of money so that we would never have to worry about bills again… what is the first thing I would get for me?

We always assume that the absolute first thing we would do after paying off all our debts is get everyone we love paid off, too. No more mortgages, no more car or student loans, no more overdue medical bills, stuff like that. But this time he asked what I would do first for me once all that is taken care of and we still have more money that we can possibly spend in several lifetimes.

I even surprised myself with my answer: I said I would find and hire a fantastic cobbler to make me a real wardrobe of great shoes.

I’m sure Mr. Twistie thought I was going to say I wanted one of every Le Creuset pot and pan ever made… and I assured him that was on my castle in the air list. Just I want some really fabulous shoes that correctly fit my wide, high-arched, buniony little paws and my extremely… unique personal style first. And I want them without having to engage in fifteen rounds of mail order and returns.

All my life, footwear has been a much bigger battle than it ought. Now, with fewer and fewer retailers carrying even a single, ugly pair of wide width shoes in the store, it’s become absolute torture. At this point, a cobbler is pretty much the only way out I see and I want one. So there!

How about you? If you suddenly lucked into Trumpesque wads of cash and have taken care of all the necessities (paying off debts, taking care of medical issues, setting up a college fund for the kids, etc.), what would be the first just for fun thing you do for yourself?

Oh, Mr. Twistie’s answer? Head straight for Saville Row and have a Beatles suit custom made for him.

All I can say to that is yeah, yeah, yeah!

Happy Friday my little whomp biscuits, how’s every little thing?

Me? I’m peachy except it JUST occurred to me that I have to drive across the country on Sunday and I don’t have a thing to wear to a place where it isn’t six thousand degrees outside with the notable exception of a lynx, a blonde mink and a pair of jeans. I’ve also got to magically conjure up an outfit for today that will take me from the wake of a really kick ass priest, to the Wales vs Ireland Rugby quarter finals at the expat bar, to a scorching midnight rock show at a place called Skinny’s Ballroom which I suspect is not technically a ballroom.

P to the S how much do I love that the Welsh sing “Bread of Heaven” at the rugby? Nothing quite like an 18th century Methodist hymn to get the fans all riled up. Truly, these are my people.

I’m also in the nerve-wracking position of picking out an outfit for when I finally meet Hot Latin Boy’s mother and man, that is one increasingly adhesive wicket. The last time I had to prepare to meet someone’s mother was in 2008 when Andre wanted to drag me to gay Paree to meet his terrifyingly chic and none-too-pleased maman, which –fun fact– is what made me crop my hair. It was bad enough I was American (vulgar) and Fat (triple vulgar), I couldn’t just go traipsing around the streets of La Rive Droite with hair that was anything less than painfully bon chic bon genre.

Now I need to come up with something that says “Please don’t hate the fat white girl who is corrupting you son, the treasure of your old age, with her iPhone and her sunscreen and her capitalist pigdog ways.”

I think it might require a petticoat.

Anyhoodle, for the weekend I’d like to know all about the toughest outfit you’ve had to select. No fair saying your wedding gown, but if it’s true it’s true. Put it in the comments and tell me how it went!

Good morning lovers, how’s every little thing?

I’m peachy as per usual but I cannot shake the feeling that today is Sunday and my entire schedule should involve nothing more strenuous than deciding which Scotch I should pour over my waffles (no really, it’s delicious. Butter, a teensy bit of pure maple syrup, Scotch and a few flakes of salt to bring out the complexity. It’ll rock your world.) so I thought instead of waxing stentorian about one thing or another, I’d open up the comments today as a sort of open forum exchange.

If you’ve got questions for me, I’ll answer them.

If there’s something on your mind that’s either rubbing you the wrong way (or the right way for that matter, but you know your pal Plummy is squicked out by overly-graphic sex talk, so maybe use some moderation with that) put it in the comments.

Heck, just check in and introduce yourself if you’re new or maybe not a regular commenter, I really do like getting to know the gang. Oh, and don’t worry if you’re not a big girl or even a girl. You’d be surprised by how many guys and straight-sized gals click here on a daily basis.

So, in the immortal words of Marvin Gaye…what’s goin’ on?

Seriously now.

Your pal Plummy was up all night doing important things (definitely NOT Googling “Xabi Alonso shirtless” and slurping her way through an undetermined number –which may or may not be four– of coco paletas while petting her dog with her foot) and my dander is now officially in the upright and locked position.

I’m a grown up, I pay damn good money for the insurance that includes vision so when I look in the mirror I know exactly what I see. I see two strong legs, broad pale shoulders, a mysterious bruise that frankly asks more questions than it answers, and I see fat.

Can’t I  just be fat? How is that such a bad thing?

Why do we skirt coyly around the word? It is like Voldemort now? (I was going to ask “is it like Bloody Mary now?” but I don’t know how many damn times I said it in the mirror, a cocktail never appears). It’s not like we’re going to be  magically unfat if we describe ourselves as “fluffy” or “more to love” or whatever cringe-worthy term allows us to not use the F word.

It’s just a word, and to me it’s a lot less embarrassing to be fat (which is to say not embarrassing at all) than it is to be Grown Damn Woman who can’t look in the mirror, call it how I see it and move along with my day.

I say away with the euphemisms.

Not just because it’s embarrassing to be afraid of a three-letter word, but it’s also taking some of our best adjectives away. Curvy = Fat. Voluptuous = Fat.  Oh and don’t even get me STARTED on the term BBW, I might pop that weird little pulse-y vein in my forehead and I just used my last Band Aid to cover up a paleta stick splinter.

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable? If you don’t use the term fat what do you use instead? Why? Put it in the comments.

Across the US of A, temperatures are rising to a potentially lethal level. That means many of us could use a hand coming up with ways to keep cool to keep safe.

When the mercury rises way too high, one of my personal favorite ways to stop steaming is to take a brief (Hey, it’s California! We’re always low on water!) tepid shower. That’s right, tepid, not cold. It actually cools me more and makes it a little easier to adjust back to the Hades-like horrors.

I also like to dab a cool, wet washcloth over my pulse points. All those places people recommend you dab perfume for the greatest potency? Yeah, those are the spots for a touch of cool water.

Keep well hydrated, and wear as many natural fibers as possible, because they breathe better than synthetics. I do my best to get my hair off my neck. I make sure to eat something salty now and again, because sweating makes you lose salt, which can make you sick. If you find that salt tastes sweet to you, you have reached a dangerous point and need to eat something salty now.

How about all of you? Any great tips for staying frosty when the sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg?

And please, those of you in the sweaty zones? Stay safe.

I am, to the unending groan of both my bank account and my bureau, a confirmed fragrance snob. I have literally driven through a Texas snow storm (which surprisingly involved actual snow and not someone doing cocaine off a piece of Larry Hagman memorabilia) to wend my way to Barney’s New York in Dallas, the only place in Texas where one can get hopped up on my particularly favorite varietals of frog juice, Serge Lutens and Frederic Malle. I love high-concept, challenging scents. Tell me something smells “pretty, like clean flowers” and I’m asleep before you’ve finished the sentence. Tell me it smells like someone left an angry carnation in a Brazilian mortuary and I’m throwing cash at you like you were the last stripper in Chiang Mai.

But as I mentioned last week and Twistie chatted about over the weekend, scent is a funny old dog. It’s a rubber band that irrevocably snaps us back to times, places and people, high-concept mortuaries be damned.

A spritz of the perverse  “Jasmin et Cigarettes” from L’etat Libre de Orange sends me right back to Andre’s place in Times Square the night he proposed, the dizzying powder green icicle of Frederic Malle’s “Iris Poudre” has me driving cross country in the famously bleak midwinter somethingorother, using my fur coat as a blanket while I caught 20 minutes sleep in the parking lot of a Denny’s and I cannot even dab on Serge Lutens’ “Bois et Musc” without bringing back some Very Good Times Indeed involving, well…absolutely nothing I feel like sharing at the moment.

On the slightly more prosaic tip, I famously first loved gin because it reminded me of being hugged by my grandmother (who, btw has done nothing but drink Tanq and smoke Benson and Hedges for the past 50 years and is going to outlive everyone but Keith Richards) and when I left the newspaper one of the saddest parts was knowing I wouldn’t get to smell that delicious, delicious ink.

And then there are the boys.

My first boyfriend covered himself in Avon’s “Wild Country” with the sort of reckless abandon usually reserved for rutting disco elks, any number of my euroflings took Chanel’s Allure pour Homme in the way virgin statues take on milk and my current sweet baboo (P to the S: it’s very difficult to explain what a Sweet Baboo is to someone who didn’t grow up with Peanuts cartoons. He thought I was calling him a festively-buttocked monkey. I’m not saying he is and I’m not saying he ain’t, but it wasn’t what I was calling him at that moment) has a scent all his own that’s slightly reminiscent of Bulgari “Black” but is probably some sort of artist’s compound that’ll give both of us tails and cancer and maybe even split ends.

Last week I shared with you the heartbreak of having a lingering affection for a now-discontinued species of Axe Body Spray and many of you chimed in with the embarrassing favorites from your past. Today I’d like to make it an official Big Question.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What scent screams “first love” to you? If you’ve got an embarrassing scent story, I want to hear it! Put it in the comments and hold your nose!