On this post-Christmas Monday, Francesca wants to know:

1- So, WHAT DID YOU GET FOR CHRISTMAS?!? Dish.

2- What was the best gift you GAVE for Christmas?

3- How was your holiday? (Be frank. We are friends here.)

Let’s talk about muffs.

(everyone recovered from their spit takes? Good. Let’s move on.)

For some, the holidays begin at the lighting of the first advent candle, for others it’s when when Creepy Uncle Kyle hits the eggnog juuust a bit too hard and starts loitering under the mistletoe even though he’s directly related to everyone in the room. For me, it’s the annual unveiling of my vintage beaver muff.

People just don’t wear muffs anymore, and I think it’s a shame. They’re so damn handy, especially when you live somewhere where it’s not really quite cold enough to need a full proper coat, but you do need something more than gloves. I bought mine a few years ago at a now-defunct antique furrier stall at Austin Antique Mall (you can get yours on eBay or at Ruby Lane, but fair warning: be ye careful with your search terms) and people just LOVE it, in fact, it’s getting worn out from so much petting that I’ll probably have to get a new one soon, so I can rotate.

From a fashion standpoint, muffs tend to require a certain presence, which makes it one of those great pieces that are actually more successful on a big girl. Think Shelley Winters, not Shelley Duvall.

I’d suggest if you’re procuring a muff for the first time to go with a color other than white, as white tends to be both a bit infantilizing –think of the millions of little girls with their precious little white rabbit muffs– and costumey (we don’t mind referencing Dickens and Victorian Christmas carolers, but we don’t want to actually look like one) so stick with brown or black instead.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What piece of clothing/accessory signals the beginning of the holidays in your heart? It can be a current favorite –embarrassing turkey sweater anyone?– or something from your youth. I just want to know what gets your bells a-jinglin’.

I am, as often mentioned, a very fair-skinned girl with very dark hair. Sure it’s all fun and games until seven short dudes want you to do their cleaning. I’m sorry, but I don’t care if you DID give me shelter from an evil queen, we have People For That.

It’s also problematic when it comes to hair maintenance.

Big girls, for some reason having to do with the hormones (there’s a real reason but I’m not googling “fat hairy girls” on my machine, no matter how much I love you all) tend to be more hirsute than the waif-types. Plus there’s more land to cover and if you’re tall like I am, sometimes I look down at the little tufts around my ankles and think “Geeze. That’s a long way down.”

The reason I’m talking about this today is last Saturday I laid the groundwork for the party season, hair-wise speaking and y’all…it took me ALL. DAMN. DAY. Now to be fair, I am the teensiest bit high maintenance, but not exceedingly.  Most folks don’t do lashes, but I don’t do pedicures, manicures or other spendy stuff.

Here’s a basic breakdown.

Eyelash extensions: $75-$100 plus tip every three weeks.  If you live in Austin or Houston, Tabitha at Flutter is the best around. I love my big ole tranny lashes and when Mean Mister Economy made me take a six-month break my poor little heart broke in two. What I love about my big lashes is I wake up, wash my face and look totally glam.

Hair dusting and re-tint: $45 – $100 with cut. There is a fine line between “statement chic” and “punk died and all I got was this jar of Manic Panic”  so I trust the electric midnight blue streaks in my 1930′s ‘do to the professionals.  They’re extremely high maintenance (I have ‘em redone every 20 days) but have become a signature. Dahn at tiny Tsunami Salon –who also does Style Spy and other People of Import– is my go-to gal for both cut and color.

Eyebrow waxing: $10 every other week.  My eyebrows are like two lovestruck caterpillars yearning to become one. I used to try waxing them myself but it Ended Badly once too many times. Did you know ladies in Colonial times would shave their eyebrows off and wear little eyebrow merkins made out of hair-on mouse hides?

Body waxing: I’m a DIY girl with most other waxing. Investing in a nice waxing kit –I’ve always like Gigi– about $60 for the supplies including the wax, and then about $30-$50 a year to replace wax, spatulas (popsicle sticks: I got mine in a bag of caramels) and cloth strips. Fancy potions and powders can set you back more, but I’ve never gone wrong with tea tree oil and neosporin.

Laser hair removal: Y’all I don’t know WHAT happened, but I went on the birth control pill for THREE MONTHS back when I was twenty three. I went off it and next thing I knew I was rockin the Amish Cravat. I’ve been doing laser treatments off and on for about a year and I’m just not sold. They’re not cheap –$250 for my chin and moustache– and I haven’t seen any long term reduction in growth, PLUS the post-laser moult is less than pleasant since the follicles on my chin pop out like I’ve got perma-goosebumps for about two weeks as it spits out the last of the hair.

Which brings me to the Forbidden Zone.

Y’all, I haven’t had shame since George Michael had a career and I just CANNOT conceive of granting some popsicle stick-wielding stranger intimate access to my Very Thing.

First of all it irks me from a feminist point of view. I know there are plenty of women who like to keep a tidy Personal Residence –myself included– just because it’s part of basic grooming but so many men seem so ENTITLED to expect a woman to be completely sans topiary.

Funk.

That.

Noise.

I know one guy, ONE guy who is both straight AND a confirmed waxer. ONE. And he only waxes his back. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to inviting guys to the  pants-off dance-off, they should understand it’s an honor just to be nominated and if they don’t like the drapes they have no business in that er…ballroom.

So today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

How much time/effort/money do YOU spend on hair maintenance? Has the recession affected your routine?

When it comes to your bikini line do you wax, shave, use a removal cream or just stay natural?

If you DO wax, do you go to a waxist, why and do you find it any more difficult because you’re a big girl?

Please keep the comments clean and no comments about what your husband/boyfriend/random guy you’re sleeping with to piss off your dad for missing your 6th grade dance recital likes. No vulva no vote, at least in this election.

When did I stop loving Halloween? It’s a holiday all about candy and dressing up. I love candy! I love dressing up! Well really I don’t love candy anymore, but I like GETTING candy and then feeling all virtuous when I give it away (except Reese’s. I’ll cut you over some Reese’s) and I lo-ove hauling out my one good Halloween story, which involves a former Speaker of The House handing out pounds of pennies in white hankies made up to look like ghosts.

I think my problem with Halloween is the costume thing. First you have the lazy costumes, that’s when people wear scrubs or their pj’s. Those bug me only because I don’t like laziness. Then there are the really intricate Renaissance costumes which only bother me about as much as they normally bother me (which is to say a lot, but not enough to do anything but make fun of them on the internet, the way the Lord intended) and the Secretly This Is My Fetish But I’m Going To Pretend It’s a Regular Costume Because You’re Too Square To Recognize It, which make me INSANE because if you are 36 year old woman with that many Japanese School Girl costumes THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR LIFE AND I DON’T NEED TO KNOW ABOUT IT.

Then there are the Naughty Costumes which are so problematic both as a feminist and as someone who doesn’t feel compelled to wait until the last day of October to express my sexuality that I can’t even write about it for fear of the vein in my forehead bursting.

So, today Miss Plumcake wants to know:
What are YOU being for Halloween?

The other night, determined to make the most of our four rainy days of autumn –it’ll be back in the 90′s by the weekend– I decided to make crêpes.

Crêpes are my favorite lazy dinner. I’d been out late, inspecting a new market, after some unpleasantness in my OLD market when some balding but be-ponytailed guy (who may or may not have been the same dashiki-wearing bastard who spilled peach smoothie on my favorite Hermès scarf back in June of 2007) told me he could “sense a blockage of my sacral chakra“, and then offered to clear my blockage through –I swear– “Healing sensual touch”.

I know! Right there in front of God, the tangelos and everyone! I needed to find a new natural market.

“But Plummy, you live in Austin, home of Whole Foods. That’s like the promised land of organic, fair trade smuggery, why not just go there?” I hear you ask.  I smell what you’re stepping in, but Whole Foods creeps me out. Partially because I believe WF founder and fellow Austinite John Mackey to be a great big honking tool and partially because I am afraid of the Market of Babylon: The world’s biggest Whole Foods –complete with a rooftop ice-skating rink– in the middle of downtown Austin.

Funny story in no way related to the post:

One day while eating Ethiopian with a Boy I Rilly Rilly Liked who had a codependent relationship with the Whole Foods prepared meals section, I mentioned my Whole Foods Fear.  He asked me if it was because of the underground parking (a rarity in Texas because of our clay soil; we don’t have basements either.)

He said he  liked them because it reminded him of being in D.C. where he spent a year working for a congressman.

I said it wasn’t the parking that bothered me, growing up in D.C. meant underground parking was no novelty, and I actually like it too. What I meant to say is was “Yeah! It reminds me of being in All the President’s Men.”

What I actually said was:

“Yeah! It reminds me of being in Deep Throat!”

Yeah.

Anyhoodle, crêpes are one of my favorite lazy comfort foods because they’re dead easy and remind me of fall, and it’s one of those things you can make for other people so they’ll just marvel at your culinary genius.  I’ve been using Andre’s recipe for a year now which is the way his mother taught him.

Basic French Crêpes:

Beat 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons browned butter, a pinch of salt and a teacup of milk plus a splash of water or booze in a bowl.  Fill that same teacup with unbleached flour and sift over the liquid, mix, let sit an hour.

In a very hot crepe pan –mine is a 7″ cast iron job– pour about 1/3rd a teacup of batter, swirling the pan until a thin layer of batter covers the pan.  Remove from heat, let the edges get a bit dry looking and flip either using a spatula, turner or your fingers if you’re insane (I am).

At that point your crêpe is ready. I just usually brush it with a bit of liqueur and browned butter or  teensy drizzle of sweetened condensed milk (you can buy it in a squeeze bottle in Latin markets) then fold it into quarters and flip it onto a plate, but you can fill a crêpe with just about anything, sweet or savory.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What your favorite lazy fall comfort food? If it’s homemade, share the recipe.

alternately

What’s the most inappropriate thing someone’s ever said to you at the grocery store?

Lately Francesca has been thinking about The One Who Got Away, the man who dated Francesca long, long ago and then stopped dating her, in part because he was stupid and did not know what was good for him, and in part because she was stupid and did not know what was good for her. She was thinking about what she might have done differently, whether it would have been worth it, whether she’d be happy now with him if they’d both been smarter (probably not). It is all academic — he is married with the two little children– but sometimes one is wistful, and wonders.

Today Francesca wants to know:

Have you forgiven yourself yet for not knowing Then what you know Now?

 In keeping with today’s literary theme and the powers of the spoken versus written word…

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

Are audiobooks cheating? If you DO like audiobooks, what are your favorites and what if anything do they offer that printed formats don’t? If you object to audiobooks, tell me why and do you think they’re doing a disservice to the printed page?

I’m not going to weigh in on an opinion with this one because I tend to sway the votes when I do. Come back tomorrow when I’ll tell you what I think (because I think we all know I can only keep my mouth shut for so long before stuff starts pouring out my delicate shell-like ears).

Bonus Fill-in-the-Blank Question:

Never trust a man whose favorite book is ______________.