Update about my new boyfriend TiVo

He apparently thinks I’m five years old. My TiVo recommendations are all from Nickelodeon, including Dora the Explorer, Go, Diego, Go, and something called "Squirrel Boy."

Thanks a lot, Season Pass of “Family Guy” and “South Park." Way to confuse my new boyfriend.

It sure doesn’t seem that exciting when you commit it to paper

This Memorial Day weekend, I:

Watched two very good movies about mentally unstable people (Prozac Nation and Proof).
Ate asiago bread and spinach dip.
Hooked up with my new boyfriend TiVo and spend most of an afternoon snuggling with him.
Finally got my Smiths poster professionally framed.
Vowed to start knitting again and even braved a trip to Michael’s (which was terrifying) to buy yarn.
Bought a docking station for my iPod and updated my stereo system.

Trust your Instincts, Girlfriend

Let’s just say that maybe you find a bag of clothes hidden under your bed in a garbage bag. And you go through the bag, thinking, “Holy cow! That’s where my khaki pants went to….and that jean skirt! I wondered about that. Look at all this stuff – why is it hidden away like this?”

And then you try on the clothes that were hidden under your bed in a garbage bag and then you think “Sweet baby Jesus, I look like total crap in these! This skirt is awful. These khakis could cover a Winnebago – everything is awful!”

And then you might realize that maybe there was a REASON that you stuffed those items into a garbage bag and hid them from yourself.

Methinks its time to go to the Goodwill.

Your Suggestions Needed!

Okay kids, here’s the dealio. This Labor Day weekend marks the 10 year anniversary of Beth’s Journey To Seattle. TEN YEARS! I was but a wee little 22 year old fuzzy baby bunny when I hopped in my Honda Civic and left the Mile High City behind for good.

So I need suggestions for how I should celebrate this milestone – whether for that specific weekend or for the summer leading up to it. There are 14 weekends between now and Labor Day -- do you have a cool weekend trip I should take? A Seattle sight I need to see? Just a cool idea that you want to make me do?

Send ‘em my way….

I Heart my BFF Santino

Can I just put it out there for the record that I freakin’ LOVE Santino of Project Runway fame? Love. Him.

I have checked out his blog and am a wee bit miffed that I was not given a heads up about his visit to Seattle last month. Hello? A 7-foot bitchy gay man that impersonates Tim Gunn to a tee? AND he was at the Cha Cha, the War Room and the Bus Stop which are, I might add, literally just a few feet from my house.

Whatever, biotch. I’ll get over it. It’s nothing a dinner at the Red Lobster with Andrae can’t cure.

Open Letter to Ra the Sun God

All hail Ra,

First off, I’d like to open by saying thank you very much for your gift, the sun. Really nice work overall on your part here. We in Seattle don’t see a lot of the sun, but we sure do appreciate it when it makes an appearance.

Which brings to my reason for writing. I wanted to take a moment to apologize on behalf of my people, the Seattleites. As I mentioned, we’re sort of new to the concept of “the sun” and as such we tend to get a little overexcited when it appears. This week is a prime example. It’s been 80 degrees now for two days (again, great work!), but it seems that folks haven’t quite worked out how to dress in this warm climate.

On behalf of the pale, the flabby, the hairy, the pasty and the totally inappropriately underclad citizens of Seattle that have been prancing around our city this week, I apologize. Especially for the shirtless man with a paunch in cut-off hotpants that was riding the number 11 bus last night. Sorry ‘bout that. Seriously.

Anyway – I know you’re busy. Thanks again for the sun and the warmth thing that you’ve got going on. We’re looking forward to seeing more of it in the months ahead and I promise I’ll do what I can to throw a couple of cardigans around the biggest pasty and hairy offenders out there.

Keep on keepin’ on,
Beth

Letters, oh we get letters…

Mailbag from the World of Beth....

Q: Your blog claims to feature the musings of Mrs. Puff, but she’s awfully quiet. What’s her problem, anyway? Does she think she’s too good for the World of Beth?
A: Gentle readers, here’s the deal with Mrs. Puff. She’s old. She’s obese. She’s very cranky. She’s kind of smelly. Her postings would most likely be about how I cruelly abandon her every single day, forcing her to sleep for long periods of time in the sun surrounded by toys. It’s a very difficult life for Mrs. Puff and she really doesn’t like to talk about it. Okay?

Q: So, what’s the deal with Mr. Puff?
A: We don’t like to discuss Mr. Puff. It stirs up bad memories for Mrs. Puff.

Q: No, seriously. What’s the deal?
A: Okay. It goes like this. They married way too young. Just kittens, really. They lived in poverty and filth, under a crowded porch in Factoria surrounded by a dozen other cats. They had some Pufflets (who, by the way, never call her, even on Mother’s Day).

Mr. Puff had a catnip problem. He gambled. He pawned her wedding collar to pay off his bookie, Fluffy. He was away from home a lot, likely cavorting with thinner, sexier tabbies. The Pufflets grew up and left the porch. Eventually Mr. Puff left too, claiming to see a shiny object that needed investigation, and he was never heard from again.

Mrs. Puff comforted herself by gorging on liver and chicken snacks while watching soap operas. She ended up at the Bellevue Humane Society, sick with a foul, snotty head cold, after a bender on Cat Chow (eaten right out of the bag!), where I adopted her. She doesn’t like to talk about her past and I don’t press her for details.

Eau de Doh?

So, get this.

I'm sure most of you have seen the Demeter fragrance line, featuring unusual scents such as "Gin & Tonic," "Dirt," and "Sugar Cookie." I myself am partial to the "Laundromat" scent, but I've never taken the plunge and actually purchased it.

Now Demeter has introduced "Play-Doh" cologne that smells like....well....you know. I think perhaps the most disturbing part of this is not that people can walk around smelling like Play-Doh, but that it will cost them $20-$40 to do so.

SIFF-a-licious

Hey kids! The Seattle International Film Festival schedule is getting announced this week! You know that means, don't you? It means that Beth is going to be huddled over her kitchen table diligently studying and marking her target list of movies with a highlighter pen and a dayplanner while she maps out her life for the next months.

Unfortunately, as has been the tradition for the past five years or so, it also means that Beth will likely get really, really excited about this at the beginning, buy a dozen or so tickets and then end up going to only 2 or 3 movies at the most.

Will Beth buck the trend? Will she be able to either buy fewer tickets or somehow manage to go to more movies? Only time will tell.

A weekend with my Spice Girls

Yes, I'm back, loyal readers -- after yet ANOTHER weekend out of the house! Get me! This is a pretty remarkable trend in the World of Beth. I headed back down the old I-5 to Oregon once more, but this time to lovely and picturesque Cannon Beach. A few highlights and observations:

1.) We realized that if we were somehow to perform in a Spice Girls reunion band, we would refer to ourselves as Spinster Spice, Barren Spice, Bitter Spice and (for me) Cynical Spice (alternatively Cat Lady Spice). This pretty much set the tone for the weekend.

2.) After a pitcher of beer, we felt the bitter barren spinster thing was kind of negative, so we tried to come up with some imaginary lives for each of us. This is an EXCELLENT exercise to try -- I highly recommend it. I had suffered a nervous breakdown after accidentally falling off of a boat and splashing into an eel breeding area and was on a day pass that weekend from the hospital. My husband was a chain saw artist.

3.) The movie "Reality Bites" never, ever gets old, sugar boogers.

4.) Yahtzee is a pretty freakin' boring game, even when alcohol is involved.

5.) A dog running at full speed on the beach is a remarkably happy thing.

6.) Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" could well be one of the best songs ever written.

7.) The Tillamook Cheese factory -- which should be one of the happiest, most exciting places a girl could ever see (provided that girl is kind of freaky about cheese) -- is actually kind of lame and depressing.

After one too many not-so-beautiful days in the neighborhood....

....Beth is packing up and moving her ass to a better part of town.

Same general neighborhood, just a little on the safer/quieter/less drunk area. I have found a DELIGHTFUL little place that ideally I'll be moving up to at the end of June. It's really quite adorable with a rooftop patio that offers views of Mount Rainier and the entire city.

Plus. GET THIS. It features both a WASHER/DRYER and....AND.....a Garbage Disposal. My heart is literally fluttering at the idea of not having to put my fingers into a slimy kitchen sink again.

Stay tuned and I'll let you know how it goes. Wheeeee.

If Anna Nicole Smith can be thin again, then surely.....

I'm a little overwhelemed, World at Large.

The thing is that I'm sitting here in my kitchen, surrounded by what can only be described as a GINORMOUS pile of boxes/cartons/containers and tubs of food from Nutrisystem.

Yes, I've taken the plunge and decided to make my contribution to the billion-dollar diet industry. I figured last week that since I largely only eat prepared food ANYWAY I might as well try and lose weight while doing it..... I can't quite figure out how I feel about all of this.

Hmmm. This is a lot to handle. Stay tuned.