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…..or half full, clearly there is room for more wine.  Some people always have a PMA.  Which has nothing to do with women being rightfully cranky once a month for way too many years.  I still see the PMA poster hanging in my college dorm room when the world was still my oyster.  Then I actually ate an oyster and realized it is a disgusting  creature that people who can afford it should never eat, but cultivate a lustrous pearl.  I probably have the science all wrong on this and was about to google it but realized I somehow got off track here.  PMA.  Or lack there of.   Most Boomlennials have been in that roundabout long enough to know its not always easy to maneuver through.  I’m not talking about that odd configuration that is supposed to be safer then stop signs but PSA- never pull out in front of an incoming pickup truck.  Sh*t for brains.  Anyyyyyyway.  PMA.  Once you hit that ‘senior ugh’ status it’s more important then ever.  Nothing gets better with age.  Wisdom, shmisdom.  Sixty is not the new fifty blah blah.  Totally fake news.  I had decided that I never wanted the ‘senior ugh’ discount.  Just wasn’t worth it to me to say that word to save a buck.  Then an even worse thing transpires.  They GIVE it to you without you asking.  The first time this happened to me was at the Cleveland Clinic when I was buying a parking pass.  Suffice it to say if you are buying a parking pass at a hospital it might not be your best glam moment.  And I should have been grateful because it is not cheap to park there and you really don’t have a choice because that place is like the Vatican but in a less cool way.   But that ‘senior ugh’ pass is still front and center in my ARE YOU FRICKEN KIDDING ME memory bank.  Even those speeding ticket(s) I got barreling out of that empire didn’t make me as mad.  I mean who can even see a camera high up on a pole?  Obviously not ‘senior ugh’ me.  So I tried again at the movie theater to just get an ‘adult smiley face’  ticket while in full makeup and they still gave me the ‘senior ugh’ discount.  I concede.  Will still whisper it but might as well embrace this creepy phenomenon.  Everybody has to believe in something.  I believe I’ll open a bottle of wine.

My favorite holiday has come and gone and no longer will I allow myself to use the F word.  I reveled.  I ate the chicken étouffée and drank the Hurricane(s).  And I said F-a-t all day long in a celebratory voice while lusting after the King cake.  But now I will use my Lenten voice for the next year until it’s appropriate to say f-a-t again in a good way.  The Boomlennial (and all the other faceless generations I might add), have taken that word to replace every other derogatory thing we no longer say.  The alphabet soup is getting quite thick, and I’m still trying to decipher some of the initials.  I know the N word is awful, and the R word, and all the nationalities that have moved to be defined by their region instead of some creepy slang.  I don’t care about people’s sex lives (ok that’s a lie I do), but not in a way to define them.   Just when I figured out LGBT a Q emerged on the end and that one threw me off but my Questioning spirit got it right.  So the only thing people rely on now to be mean to someone is to call them f-a-t in a mean or bullying or I’m not a nice person voice.  Last weekend I was watching the Cavs with one of my dearests and there was a female announcer who was gratingly annoying.  She would interview in a break but kept asking stupid questions long after the game resumed.  And did it multiple times.  Just rude and really bad sportmanship when the Cavs were kicking a$$.  Finally one of my dearests said  “get that fat woman to shut up already”.  I agreed with the shut up part.  BUT.   She’s not even f-a-t.  Rather petite actually.  I realized that’s the last word that it’s still socially acceptable to say when you want to be critical for whatever reason.  My dearest knew enough not to call her a dumb blonde because them are fightin words.  Just kidding.  Kind of.  Maybe.  Possibly.  Why test the waters?   So the venom shot out and I pounced.  Fortunately the *ss whoopin was more fun so I moved on.  Maybe.  Possibly.  Laissez les bons temps rouler!

1.  Have a body.
2.  Go the beach.
3.  Bikinis?  Oh hell no.  I thought you said martinis.  Having a beach vacation is much easier than it used to be.  The Boomlennial is much more comfortable  being with a group of pasty white strangers and relaxing.  No more worrying about a ripple or a wrinkle or a stretch mark that isn’t going to unstretch no matter what gooey concoction you apply to it. Probably not going to get toned or ripped or elongated at this point.  We’ve thrown in the beach towel and are just grateful for sunshine on our scraggly face.  Of course I’m the last person who still believes the sun is good for you.  Love me some vitamin D.  Love me some rosy cheeks and bronzed skin.  Love me the mental health benefits that only that blazing ball gives me.  My dermatologist may not agree with me so he is not invited along.  I will deal with the consequences of my good/bad decisions if necessary and just soak up the glorious rays.  I take really good care of my pancreas whatever that means so it better not be touched by that no names please disease.  Planning for that beach getaway gets you through the dregs of winter.  As opposed to a ski trip, beach clothes are light and small(ish) and you can bring so much more that you’re not going to wear.  How fun is that!  Toes get brighter, hair gets lighter.  The serious books of dark days are replaced by trashy novels that you can proudly refer to as beach reads.  The celebrities become my friends as I catch up on the rag magazines (sorry People), and Oprah will enlighten me with her wisdom.  What’s not to love?  I think salt water is good for what ails you and the straw on my head might disagree but poof!  Mermaid hair, don’t care.

Wait!  Wait!  Bad Advice!!!!  Be a Follower!!  Like me! Love me!  Share me!  Comment on me!  Just don’t troll me because then I think of a little naked guy with glassy eyes and colored hair with too much static.  Being a follower has sure changed connotations over the years.  No more sheep baaaabaaaaing.  We’ve become a world of followers.  We follow people, pages, links, groups, and more nonsense then I care to admit.  And we get great satisfaction from how many millions if not trillions of followers we have.  I have never been so popular in my life!  It’s an odd pecking order when you have hundreds of  ‘friends’  but nothing to do on a weekend.  Soooo you follow more sh*t and hope you get more followerrrrrs.  The young man who got his picture taken with JT at the Super Bowl was more excited about all the online traction he got then the actual selfie.  He became an overnight rock star and didn’t have to do too much.  Of course he was so busy getting the video that the whole encounter probably blew right by him but oh well.  He has lots-n-lots of followers now and I’m just jealous.  Like ME!  Love ME!  Leadership be damned!  Follow ME!   Just to be clear, I really don’t care about any of that but since there are enough people who do I try to be relevent.  The Boomlennial has a unique perspective and voice that sometimes needs to BE SHOUTED in all caps baaaaaa.

I don’t even know where a sandwich lives.  Cooking, eating, and drinking have become quite an endeavor recently.  Beer has somehow become a craft, and like crocheting can be quite complicated.  The are millions to choose from (at least) and they are catogrized with fancy initials, and grain choices, and countries they come from, or at least that’s what you are led to believe.   I know some of these craftsmen and they are the same dudes that used to be banging on cheap guitars in garages and basements, but have created an industry that seems to be working.  Winemakers can’t have all the fun.  But much like the snobbishness of winos (take out the alchohol and would anyone really be drinking that juice??),  beer aficionados know their stuff.  And that’s probably what really gnaws at me.  I know everything.  EVERYTHING.  Truly brilliant.  But I have been publically ridiculed for ordering something generically lite, or natural, or cheap.  (Yes that was overly dramatic but I like to ridicule others since I am an expert on everything.  EVERYTHING).  But much like cooking I just don’t care that much.  If my kitchen were filled with vending machines I’d be good with that.  I don’t want to talk about it.  I was in a bar of all places where two men were trying to one up each other on how they smoke tenderloin.  Yes the kind that comes from an animal.  They had dualing rubs, and temperatures, and times, and spices, and all kinds  of heated debate about whose was bigger and better.  Yes still talking tenderloin here.  My tongue was bloody from biting it so hard because there were way too many good jokes going to waste.  But once men got into the cooking thing it got ‘craft’ status and full on competition.  Women cook to feed people,  men cook as an art form.  Simplistic, of course, but there is a whole channel devoted to food and cooking and someone’s watching it.  I’ve never seen it because it would make me hungry and I’d have to go searching for quarters to get my lunch.  Now craft vending machines hmmmm??

 

If that title doesn’t pull you in like a pair of pantyhose with too many runners,  you have no imagination.  Which is the reason I couldn’t come up with a better way of expressing my favorite symbol.  Long story longer.  A friend of mine was giving me a play by play of a horrible thing he did.  So horrible.  It was a beautiful spring day and his kids came home from school and wanted to go out and play.  He thought it was a grand idea oh dear oh dear.  So out they went ooobla dee oobla da.  I’m starting to shake now.  SPOUSE comes home, sees the kids outside in school clothing, and lights into the world.  Yells at him, yells at kids, yells yells yells.  Such a big, bad blunder.  So smooth guy that he is draws a Big Circle with a Small Dot in the Middle, and explains calmly that the Circle is his world, and the tiny Dot is how much he cares about the kids playing in their school clothes.  Perfect gentleman, perfect sense.  I think many things that make us want to yell yell yell are just Little Dots.  Perspective.  This happened over ten years ago but I often think of that symbol which I wish I could name and patent.  Goose poop on your clothes is a tiny Dot.  Wait I take that back.  It’s disgusting.  But making yourself crazy over trivia is not good when we live in a trivial world.  SPOUSE is a bit of a wack job (oh yeah that’s rude), and I might be losing another follower here, but I’ll always be so appreciative of a path to categorize my life dot dot dot….

 

usually takes the bitch right out of me.  Unless of course the frumpy waitress keeps telling me it’s her favorite.  Or the meal I ordered is her favorite.  Or the screeeeeeam.  Why in the world would anyone care about the palette of the no name waitress?  Or maybe the question is what training manual has been circulating in the culinary field.  I’ve heard the line before and roll my eyes maybe, probably, but stop it no name.  I don’t know you and you don’t know me and free range squirrel is delightful and what do you think of that?  It reminds me of the diet commercials that say ‘if I can do it anyone can do it’.   Really?  You are the role model for the ENTIRE WORLD???   Who gave Marie Osmond that awesome responsibility?   I don’t know you, you don’t know me.  Eating out of cardboard boxes that have been sitting on my porch all day is not my go to plan, but thanks, Marie, for thinking you got my back.  Now about those blown up lips that are about to explode Botox…  Oops, off message.  Back to me.  A great tidbit I heard is never take advice from someone you wouldn’t want to switch places with.  Yes that sounds snooty and kind of brilliant.  Sometimes you just have to narrow the field of who you listen to.  No Name shouldn’t be advising me.  And if I’m thrilled that her and I share similar tastes in wine, might need to delve into that more deeply.  Bet the docs Oz and Phil could beat that one for an hour.  Also role models for the world. Or maybe I need to lay off daytime TV and just drink water.  Sparkling, flat, bottled, tap?  What do you suggest?  Help glug glug glug….

 

As I reach a new year of insobriety,  it’s time to ponder the Boomlennial folklore and see how we’re doing and where we are going.  The millenials get a lot of attention but I’m not so sure that a populace that can’t stop eating Tide pods is getting my respect.  The Boomlennial does need to step up their game a bit and be somewhat inventive, however.  Way too many of us go to Florida in the winter which is nice and warm and bright and ok now I’m just jealous.  But sometimes you go there and hang out with the same people you do up north.  Bad Boomlennial grade for that.  Meet new weird people.  You see the old weird people enough.  Or go west young (wo)man.  Lots-oh-beautiful hot spots.  Retirement is on a lot of minds, but a good exit plan is hard to come by.  Unless you have forty hours of fun, enriching, mind expanding things to do, reconsider.  Bagging groceries at the local supermarket isn’t going to cut it for most of us.  And your children really don’t want to see you that much.  Volunteering in the community is a lofty goal but let’s face it.  If you haven’t been doing it all along its probably not going to happen.  The best community activists have been involved while they were working and/or raising families and/or having too much fun and/or making it a priority in time and/or $$$.    Just trying to help out my peeps here and evaluate a generation that needs to hold their own.  Don’t be complacent.  I need to pad my lucrative book deal and if my Boomlennial brothren aren’t sculpting me a new Adonis I’ll have to rely on YouTube for content and start inhaling cinnamon and work my way up/down to Tide pods.  Think I’ll start with birthday cake #alsoloftygoal

my metabolism.  It’s that time of year and all the new diet books and chit chat shows are just giving me too much credit but thanks. The latest book says if you fast for twelve hours a day you’ll lose weight.  Call me crazy here but don’t most people do that??  If you have dinner at seven, twelve hours will pass until you eat again or am I missing out on that luscious 4am  snack?  Of course there’s always that evening binge or those glasses of Chardonnay that majically appear in my hand well into the evening, but on a whole I’d say I’m generally into a fourteen hour fast and nothin.  The obit on my metabolism was written long ago.  Nothing gets better with age except your perception of how wonderful you used to be.  I joined Weight Watchers for the first time when I was eighteen and have been a member most of my adulthood.  There are those who might think that is a failed relationship  but au contraire.  They continue to be my best buddy and have not overestimated my metabolism, relationships, common sense, and get my love/need/want for food.  Every diet works.  (Okay maybe not that dumb twelve hour fast thing).  But I think the Boomlennial has finally conceded that we need to live life.  Which of course includes being healthy and digging chocolate and trying our best to keep all the bad things at bay.   WW has grown and evolved with me, which includes doing your homework and not being complacent, and being a very good Boomlennial.  Once you stop fighting there ceases to be a war.  Mindfulness.  A very good word which makes me feel very Oprahesque and not the one yelling during award shows but the old school one that pulled a wagon of fat across the stage.  Being in the moment.  Making thoughtful decision.  Even the bad ones.  Very Boomlennialesque.

#newbeginnings#freshstart#resolutions#overitsigh.  The optimism of the new year is over.  Almost a week into it and I still haven’t lost twenty pounds.  The new calendar is still under the tree.  Covered in dirty needles.  Did manage to throw all the sweets out and not dig them back out of the trash so maybe should give myself credit for that.  Scratching for positivity here……  But as the year is wearing on I’m getting cranky.  And some of you are just ticking me off.   The women broadcasting from New York during a cyclone bomb (sounds like something I’m ordering tonight shots!)  dressed in sleeveless summer dresses.  Just seems dumb.  People are stupidly waving at you through the windows with nothing showing but their frost bitten eyes and you are flexing your toned arms.  If it was sweltering outside and you showed up in a sweater and turtleneck it would look absurd during the summer.  Get where I’m going with this??  Just annoys me.  Probably have white heels on your bare legs.  If you want credibility don’t cover the frigid blizzard dressed for an umbrella drink on the veranda.   I know this isn’t a topic that requires this much space but I’m trying to deflect the No Names Please people who tick me off.   If I’m your boss don’t argue with me.   If I’m your mother don’t argue with me.  If I’m buying something from you don’t argue with me.   If you’re serving me food don’t argue with me.  And so it goes.  My dog pooped in the house because it’s too cold for his big hairy *ss to squat outside.  Not forgiving this.  There is as much salt inside the house as on the driveway.  Nope not happy.  Schools are closed which I really shouldn’t care about but I know the mall and the ski slopes will be packed and it annoys me.  Why??   Deep thinking tells me that all the things put off during ‘the holidays’ must now be addressed.  And I still don’t want to.  I want to sit and look at the beautiful snow and dig those cookies out of the trash.  Only the clean ones.