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

God. What a week. First Kevin “Too Fat For The Sky” Smith gets kicked off that Southwest flight and yesterday some whackadoo flies his damn plane into a building with some IRS offices in my fair hamlet of Austin, Texas.

I’m pretty much ready to lock my door, turn off all my personal equipment and hunker down for the weekend with a bottle of Basil-Hayden’s and some Almodovar films until everyone has regained what they have lost of their damn minds.

HOWEVER, before I do that we’ve got a little housekeeping to do:

Comments: Do you know who does the comment admin? ME.  And it sucks, because there are always a million spam comments that somehow make it through the filter trying to sell me things that normally would require a fake foreign visa and a cash-only trip to Thailand.  The only thing that’s WORSE than spam is having to go and moderate comments from het up readers whose passionate feelings override their better sense when it comes to what is and is not appropriate on the blog.

Francesca, Twistie and I are fair game. I like Twistie so you take your blogging life in your hands if you go after her, but generally speaking you can have at us.  Don’t go after other readers with ad hominem attacks or telling them to leave.  If your name isn’t on the masthead, you don’t get a say as to who is welcome on this blog.  Sorry! (But not really!)

Keep the profanity to a minimum. I love a well-placed f bomb as much as the next gal, assuming the next gal is a merchant marine, but this is a family blog so keep it clean.

There is a reason James Joyce does not post in comments. Sure, technically that reason is that he’s dead, but ALSO he’s long-winded.  I LOVE that y’all are erudite and clever and put thought into your comments, but when they run to five and six hundred words?  Perhaps a blog with a linkback might be more appropriate. It shows up in the comments field anyway. Also, there is  no excuse for a 1048 word comment –not that I’m naming any names, ROBIN.

If you’re going to flounce, flounce and be quiet about it. Listen, we love each and every one of our readers, but there are a LOT of you. Francesca and Twistie aren’t around enough for the care and keeping of your individual heartstrings and I’m too mean to do it. So if you’re going to get your pwecious feeeeewings hurt and you want to leave forever, then just leave. Don’t throw a big hissy about it. We hate to see you go, but we trust your judgment as an adult enough not to try to convince you to stay.

Don’t troll advertise. Dude. We know what you’re trying to do by putting vapid six word comments on every.single.post. with a link to your own blog. If you want to advertise on the blog we would LOVE to take your money, if you want us to link to your blog, send me an email. I’ll check it out and if I like it, I’ll put it on the roll.

Okay, that’s all the admin for this week! Happy trails, campers! I’ll see you on the other side of the weekend.

I love doing these housekeeping things because they make me feel all virtuous and like a Real Person instead of someone who yells at the internet for money.

Personal Blogs:

Thanks everyone for posting your favorite blogs and personal blogs yesterday! I’m totally going to blogstalk you all now. Incidentally, the best way to get us (by which I mean me, but probably Twistie and Francesca too) to read your blog is to link back to us. That way we can see it in the “incoming links” section of our publishing platform. Don’t worry, if you’ve got a protected livejournal or blog, we can’t see it, so feel free to say what you REALLY think about who should’ve won Twistie’s Sunday Caption Madness. And if you’ve got a blogroll or whatever the kids are calling it these days, why not link us up, buttercup?

Comments:

We’ve been getting a ton of spam sneaking through our filters recently so we’re tightening the screws a bit. That means there will be more of your comments filtered incorrectly for a while, so if you post a comment (and you’re NOT trying to sell me a Russian bride/motorized scooter/prescription drugs) and it doesn’t show immediately, it just means it’s stuck in a filter and I’ll get to it soon. I go through our filter several times a day.

Features:

You’ve probably noticed some of the features, notably The Monday Hotness and The Friday Fierceness have been on hiatus for the past few weeks. Fret not. Blog features tend to get stale sooner rather than later, so I’m giving them a teensy break. The Hotnesses are all serving as houseboys at Château Gâteau and the Friday Fiercenesses are in The Betty. they’ll be back –albeit possibly in a slightly different form– probably sometime in March. Remember, if you have suggestions be sure to email them in!

Reader Emails:

Love. Them. I don’t get to respond to each one but I do my best. Just a few days ago from a reader who was usually a vodka tonic girl. She resolved to try a new cocktail a month so I suggested a dozen seasonally-appropriate classic cocktails to try. It helped her and it reminded me of a few beloved toddies I’d gone without for months (monkey gland, anyone?)

When you’re writing in with a clothing or shoe question generally I’ll need the following information:

Where you live (not a street address, but a city or state would be helpful)
Your approximate age
Your size and shape
Coloring (if it’s clothing)
Your budget
What you do want
What you DON’T want
The event, location, its approximate date and dress code

A sample email would go like this:

Hi Plumcake, you’re my favorite blogger in the history of the world and they really should make statues in your likeness although it would be difficult to etch such perfection in stone. I’ve got a wardrobe question. I’m 30 years old, 5’10, pear-shaped and generally wear a size 20. I’m looking for something to wear to a semi-formal charity dinner that’s being held in an old-fashioned grand hotel in the middle of March. I live in Austin, so the weather will probably be in the 60’s and possibly rainy. I’ve got a great neckline so I’d like to show that off, but I’d rather keep my arms covered. My budget is about $150 for the dress, and $100 for the shoes. Oh, and I hate crushed velvet.

Thanks,
Yourself

P.S. I’ve got Snow White coloring: dark hair, pale skin and blue eyes.
P.P.S. Do you mind if I give Tom Waits your phone number? He’s been secretly in love with you for years.

Well that’s all for now, campers. The houseboys are getting restless, so have a fab weekend, I know I will!

during our somewhat hinky transfer to the new WordPress.  We seem to have gotten most of the bugs worked out,  although comments are still getting eaten on occasion.

We’re working on that, but just remember: We’re not mad at YOU, we’re mad at the dirt.

As you might have noticed, our server has been spending a good deal of time going tits up thus making it difficult to dispense your daily dose of Plumcakery. Rest assured, our little tech gnomes are on it, so don’t worry your pretty little heads.

If you’ve made a comment and it didn’t post or it mysteriously disappeared you haven’t been forsaken. Our spam filter is clearly on a scorched earth campaign and marking all sorts of things as spam, and not just regular spam but super-secret spam that I have to get through in really roundabout ways. I’ve been scouring through the hundreds and hundreds of “known spam” messages and rescuing the ones I can,  but don’t give up hope. We’re not a fabulously shod totalitarian regime….yet.

Tweets?

Follow her @FrancescaShops. (Did I do that correctly?)