I See Your Famous Chihuahua And Raise You A Squirrel In Underpants

This has been a very busy holiday and tomorrow I go back to the day job and the real world. I didn’t have any major topics to write about but here are a few highlights from the last few days. Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.

Plates For Our Plates

A few weeks ago, The Husband Dude and I were watching Hell’s Kitchen when they showed one of the table settings. Of course, it was a very formal setting with all the different kinds of silverware, cloth napkins, fancy china, wine and water glasses and charger plates. If you don’t know what a charger plate is, read on.

Me: Do you see that? (I pause the video). Do you see that plate under the real plate?

The Husband Dude: Yes I see it. What about it?

Me: One of these days when we have a bigger house and I can have a bigger dining room table, I want some of those. They’re called charger plates.

THD: What’s a charger plate?

Me: It’s this really large plate, but it can be made out of anything: wood, metal, china or even plastic. It’s decorative. You put it under your real china on the table and it just looks pretty. They usually use them at formal dinners and weddings and fancy restaurants.

THD:  And you want some?

Me: Yes. I want some in Christmas colors to put under my Mom’s Christmas china. Wouldn’t that be pretty?

THD: (Looking skeptical) Hmmm…I guess so. *mumble, mumble*

Fast forward to this last Friday. I’m running around the kitchen like a chicken with my head cut off, getting ready for our tamale dinner and Christmas celebration with the kids and grandkids. THD walks in with a large box wrapped for Christmas.

THD: I think you need to open this one now.

Me: Open it now?

THD: Yes, right now.

I opened the box and inside were five red charger plates and five gold ones.

Me: Well…oh my gosh! I didn’t think I would get these this year!

THD: Well, why wait?

Me: You were actually paying attention!

THD: I do that sometimes.

Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised and pleased.

Me: Did you have a hard time finding them?

THD: I had to go to a couple of stores before I found one that had them. You have no idea how hard it is to explain what this is. I kept asking for chargers and they kept sending me to the cell phone and car battery aisles. I finally told the lady that I needed a plate for our plates and she sent me to the Christmas aisle and there they were.

In case you’re wondering, here’s what a plate for your plate looks like:

And in case you’re a nerd like me and want to know why they’re called charger plates, I looked it up and found this on Wikipedia:

Food is not actually served on chargers; they are often called underplates or chop plates. The word “charger” originated around 1275–1325 from the Middle English “chargeour”. Formerly, a charger signified either a large platter or a large, shallow dish for liquids.

Of course, as soon as I set the table, I had a sudden urge to put on a British accent and cuss at people about their cooking skills…

THD actually had a really good year of paying attention. Remember the squirrel underpants I wrote about a few weeks ago? Guess who now owns a pair?

But really, when you’ve been married for nearly eighteen years, you just kind of know each other.

Apparently, I’m An Old Lady

A friend of mine posed a question on Facebook the other day asking if anyone still wears White Diamonds perfume and joking about the cheesy 80’s commercial with Elizabeth Taylor in a casino in Monte Carlo or some place exotic.

Spoiler Alert: I wear White Diamonds. Daily. Like it has been the only perfume I’ve worn regularly for the last twenty years and right now I don’t own a bottle of anything else.

A friend of hers posted that only old ladies wear White Diamonds.

Then THD posted a comment about “Kat wears it all the time. It’s her favorite.”

Then my friend told her friend, “Kat isn’t old.”

Then the friend said,  “You can be young and still be old.”

Huh.

It’s one of those moment you don’t really know what to say.

If you know the person, then you know whether the person is just being funny in a good-natured way.

If you don’t know the person, then it just comes off rude as hell. Like, I don’t know you, bitch. Why would you be rude? And all that black eyeliner and 1940’s bangs aren’t exactly doing you any favors in the youth department, either, so pot meet the kettle.

But  I don’t like starting shit on my friends’ Facebook pages when they are trying to be light-hearted and funny and the chick in question is friends with two of my friends. And I still don’t know her intent…

So I go into my usual defense mode which is to pretend the comment didn’t bother me and haha I’m 46 and don’t give a shit who thinks I’m old.

I seriously don’t. But I do care that someone feels like it’s ok to be rude when it’s completely unprovoked.

I always feel like an idiot in these situations. Do I respond in kind? If rudeness wasn’t her intent, then I look like a dumbass. If rudeness was her intent, then she succeeded in baiting me, which is annoying too. What the hell?

If I ever figure out the appropriate response, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy the bottle of White  Diamonds THD gave me for Christmas and I’m going to pretend I’m Liz Taylor at the craps table in Monte Carlo instead of sitting at my desk at work getting the verbal crap kicked out of me by more rude people.

Are You More Popular Than A Chihuahua?

Of course, as soon as I’m flouncing around with my fancy plates-for-my-plates, and my old lady perfume, and my rodent panties, I go on Twitter and realize I’ve gained some followers and I’m up to a whopping 112. I’m feeling like a real baller.

Until I see this.

Meet Barkley.

Yes, that’s right. A Chihuahua from Nowata, Oklahoma has 13,300 followers on Facebook and “wrote” an editorial in the paper about having to take unwanted baths.

Fuck. My. Life.

Look, I’m not hating on the dog, or the owner who clearly got a schtick and went with it. More power to them.

I’m just lamenting the fact that I use words like “lamenting” in my blogs and I’ve got 112, no make that 111 because someone just unfollowed me, followers on Twitter. A Chihuahua who can’t even actually speak or write has over 13,000 followers on Facebook.

As the Millennials would say:

I. Can’t. Even.

Oh well. When I get a pet squirrel to go with the underpants I already have, and teach it to do tricks on my plates-for-my-plates, wearing White Diamonds, we’ll see who has more followers on social media!