Just a few questions

As we contemplate the meaning behind Easter - and I'm not talking chocolate rabbits and psychedelic eggs here - some questions come to mind. Not that they have any relevance to Easter - or anything else for that matter - but I do have some questions that I'd like to ask God.

1) When You created the duckbilled platypus, did You glom together some spare parts or do You just have a whimsical sense of humor?

2) Do you look at human accomplishments over the millenia - social improvements, medical advancements, space travel, and (You forbid) computers and cell phones, and consider that we've done well?

3) Ever wish You had reconsidered the free will thing?

4) Cats. Chocolate. Lilacs. Elephants. Fresh corn. Tulips. Sunsets. Wow! Thanks!

5) Brussels sprouts. Mosquitos. Wolverines. Tornados. Earthquakes. I suppose You had Your reasons?

6) Whatever happened to Amelia Earhardt? Just curious.

7) Of what possible value to You are dust mites?

8) How come birds get to fly and we don't?

9) I have a list of people who need a good smite. Can I fax it to You? I suppose You have Your own list.

10) Spiders and insects who devour their mate after mating? What's up with that?

11) People who gripe about separating church and state, keeping Christmas observances out of the public, yet insist on not working Christmas Day. You must find that ironic?

12) What goes through Your mind when You look down at inflatable snowmen and plastic eggs hanging from a tree?

13) What do You do for fun? Or do we want to know that?

Not Just Another Dumb Award

Finally. An award I can hang my hat on. I don't want this particular award, but I know a lot of people who should have it.

It's the International Twit Award. I haven't found much about where it is held, how to nominate someone, what the prize money amounts to or if it's for international twits or it's an international award. Has to be the latter because there's just so darned many of them.

I also couldn't find any notice of who previous winners have been.

I only know that there is such an award and it's awarded in April. And I know that twits are silly and annoying people.

I might have found some of this stuff out if I 'd looked harder, but I was so taken by the notion of the award, and its possibilities, that I just didn't care much to do the research.

I'm too busy now thinking of people who deserve the award.

There's the guy in Michigan I read about who sued his sister's insurance company because her cat bit him. She told him not to mess with the cat; it tends to bite. But no-o-o-o-o. He teases the cat and the cat, rightfully, chomped him. What a twit.

A jury awarded him $122,400 in damages. Twits by the dozen.

It's a little harder to pinpoint the next nominee, but I'm sure you've met people like this. They have adopted a cat, and they like the cat, and the cats apparently like the respective adoptive people. Then they go and say something like, "he's more like a dog than a cat." Like that's a compliment? If a cat shows affection and follows someone around, it's because it's a nice cat who likes the person - and probably thinks it will get some food if it follows far enough. Dogs don't have a corner on that market. Twit!

Or how about the guy I saw yesterday walking down the street. It was a warm, spring day. His shirt was off, showing the tattoo on his scrawny, pasty white back, and his pants were about six inches from where they were supposed to be, showing off the top of his green underwear. He thought he looked hot. Or looked tough. He looked like a twit.

And don't you just love to see men roll down the window of their pickups and hear the melodic sound of their throat clearing and see the accuracy with which they can expectorate? Listen to the song of the birdie: twit, twit, twit!

The possibilities are endless: smokers, mothers who let their children run wild, people who want to rewrite history by banning the Confederate flag, those who claim it's their God given right to individual freedom not to wear seat belts or motorcycle helmets. Congress. I could go on and on.

I can't imagine what the prize is for being a twit award winner. Nor can I imagine who is qualified to judge and have the final say in selecting the grand champion, big-time, grand hoo-ha international twit.

But I'll volunteer anyway. I know one when I see one.

It's Your Day - Maybe

I've always said that there's an Internet site for just about everything — photos of cats with markings that make the poor critters look like Hitler, for instance.

Before that, I said there's a magazine for just about everything. Ever heard of Coon Dog Monthly?

Seems there's a holiday for just about everything too. Not those legitimate proclamation-type holidays like Cancer Awareness Month or American Chocolate Week (next week!), but stuff that makes you wonder if people aren't stretching things a bit - National Spandex Month, if there is one and there probably is, notwithstanding.

This month, in fact we missed it, some folks acknowledged "What if Dogs and Cats Had Opposable Thumbs Day." It was March 3, too late to do much about it now, but I can tell you what would happen if my two cats had opposable thumbs. They'd figure out how to work the can opener, write checks on my bank account, and kick me out of my own home, that's what they'd do. Don't even think about that. They're wily enough as it is.

This month we celebrate spring fever week. Just a week? I've had it all month.

March 27 is Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day. Do we really need to encourage that?

We missed National Name Tag Day, March 9. Well, I didn't miss it; I would have ignored it if I had known about it. I hate those things. Everybody in a room walks around looking at everyone else's chests. You wanna know my name? Ask me! Who else among us has forgotten they had a name tag stuck on their blouse, and ran through a checkout line wearing it, like you want the world to know your name. And then, if you're as forgetful as I am, you throw the blouse with the tag on it in the washer, and the dryer, and you have a permanent tag on that blouse.

That leads to March 18 - National Awkward Moments Day. Oopsie!

March 23 is pretty much like any other day when I don't embarrass myself, and shouldn't be limited to just one day: OK Day. Most of my days are just that, OK.

In the event there isn't a day commemorating crabby Baby Boomer women looking for chocolate and a day when I'm not wondering how long it's going to take the 20-somethings to totally mess up our world, it's pretty much covered by March 31: "She's Funny That Way Day."

Here's to ya.'

Yes! Chemise please!

It was like a bad dream. There I was in a clothing store, and there were racks and racks of items all marked down 60 percent. That's a good markdown, not like some places that think they're giving you a bargain with a 20 percent off sale. This was 60 percent. There was even a rack of stuff all marked $12.95.

I had money. They had my size. Alas, they didn't have anything my age.

When did that happen? I seem to be caught in the crossfire between "I want something that's pretty" and "I don't want to look like an old woman." Trouble is, I'm about to hit a birthday that ends in "0" and I'm not ready to go matronly.

But there seems to be a choice only between "old lady" and "really, really young." Lots of baby-doll blouses with high waistlines that, if you're 20, accentuate the bustline. If you're ?0*, your boobs are so far below that empire waistline nothing can save them. It's the same with dresses. All you find anymore are dresses with a high waist and a skirt that goes to the ankle. Boring. Not flattering, especially if you have hips.

Spring fashion predictions extol the clothing line called "Baby Phat." Cute. But show me something to cover up "Old Broad Fat."

Hot for this spring are skinny leg jeans. Ain't no way I can get my substantial thighs into skinny leg jeans. At my age, if I get winded just zipping up my pants, then they ain't worth wearing, as the song goes, "skinny legs and all."

So what's in style this spring and summer? Baby Phat is also pushing high neck halter dresses with bubble-hem skirts. Just the thing to wear with an industrial strength bra and support hose.

Marie Claire magazine touts wedges and platform shoes. I couldn't walk on them in the 70s without breaking an ankle. Thank heavens I can still find flats.

According to Harper's Bazaar (or is that Bizarre?), those blasted empire line dresses are still with us, but wait! I can't believe my eyes! Sack dresses are coming back!

Oh, joy! I loved sack dresses. They're comfortable, they're slimming, and they flatter every figure. Not only that, they're pretty.

In the 1970s they were called shifts. But in the 1950s they were called chemises. Remember Gerry Ganahan's 1958 song "No Chemise Please?" "You can take back the sack, leave it hanging on the rack, and bring the sweater back."

These days I wear sweaters for warmth, not for any fashion statement (see above reference to sagging boobs). But I would wear a chemise. Or a sack. Whateaver you want to call it. A shift? Why not; it describes what's happened to my body. Everything has shifted.

(And no, I didn't automatically know who sang the song. I remembered the words, and I knew it was the '50s, but I had to Google it. Amazing what one can find on the Internet.)

*Here's a hint: the last line James Garner says in the movie "Murphy's Romance."

Pssssst. How 'bout a little weed.

So here we are again — hail the size of apricots, winds that make you glad wraparound skirts are out of fashion, enough rain to gladden the gills of any tadpole. Ah, spring is coming! Such a warm, gentle season has such a violent beginning.

It's safe to say that March came in today like a lion. Which leads me to anticipate a lion of my favorite variety: dandelions.

Say what you want about having a lush, green pristine lawn. It's too much like work, and we have enough demands on our time as it is. Who inscribed it in stone that lawns must be without blemish in the adolescence of summer? I love those little yellow eruptions on the complexion of the lawn.

But I wax poetic here. Or something. The fact is, I like dandelions. I always pick the first one I see and inhale its scent. I'm transported back to being 5 years old in the warm spring sun, picking a bouquet of dandelions to give to my mother who would put them in a juice glass of water and brightened up the kitchen table with them.

Say what you want about a velvety green lawn that needs to be fed, aerated, pampered and coddled like a blonde starlet. On those lawns you'll never find a stem with a sphere of dandelion seeds waiting for someone to pick it, make a wish, and blow the seeds across the world. If you blow all the seeds off in one whoosh, your wish will come true.

I'm not the only one who loves dandelions. Ladybugs like to eat the pest aphids on them, and ladybugs are good for the garden. And ladybugs are cute.

Some people eat the dandelion greens raw in salad or cook the greens in a soup. The leaves are high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C and iron. Dandelion root makes a good coffee substitute which is believed to aid digestion. And it won't keep you up at night. Dandelions contain Luteolin, an antioxident.

The yellow dandelion flowers make a really good wine, an unpretentious little wine with a unique sweet bouquet and an unassuming attitude that, if made correctly, will knock you right on your keister.

An ode: Roses are red. Shoes are for buyin.' Nothing says spring, Like a dandelion.

I like clover flowers too. But that's another blog.