Miss Piggy: She will cut you where you stand!

On the Bettyverse blog today writer and a Betty wrote about her Cathy doll, whose been a constant companion for many ack-filled years. It's a wonderful, well-written post--takes a minute to read... go on, you know you wanna!

Made me think of the Miss Piggy puppet my dad bought my mum when I was about 5 or 6. My mother loved Miss Piggy for... need one explain? She's tough, yet feminine. Always strong. Never diets. Always stands up for herself. Believes herself to be irresistible and a star. Always believes in herself. And will cut you if you stand in her way. I tend to refer to her on this blog when I feel like we need someone to stand up for the ladies. Where's a pig when you need her!

And though this has never occurred to me before, I love that Henson chose a pig as his ultimate feminine role model muppet. Because this way she's always fat isn't she? But she's meant to be fat. It's part of who she is, she's a pig. Or as she once sang: She's a woooooman!  W-o-m-a-n  p-i-g.

Thanks to the cartoonists and mupeteers of the world for giving us our fictional friends and role models to get us through the hard times.
          

"There's too much good taste around." - Marilyn Kirschner

I've featured Irish Apfel before, but since there's a new story on her in the New York Post I thought I'd post her again. At the time I had google ads up and had to be careful not to post lots of pics I didn't have permission for--one of the reasons I took it down was so I could throw caution to the wind again.
I love people like this.

"When you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else." - Iris Apfel (NYT)

M.K.: What is your ‘must read’ each month?

I.A.: I don’t have any “must”…really. I always look at New York Magazine when I am here to see what’s going on…I do everything that inspires and moves me…. M.K.: No fashion magazines?

I.A.: No, I lost my interest in what is going on unfortunately…and I don’t understand a lot of magazines, I don’t understand showing $20,000 dresses on 14 year old models…. Doesn’t make any sense to me. I went to a show in Palm Beach recently which had beautiful clothes…but I had never seen such itsy bitsy models… I asked, “What nursery did you rob? And was told, “We really had a problem because our samples were so small, our regular in-house girls couldn’t fit into them”. The girls must have been 14 and 15 years old… Now how can an intelligent middle aged or older woman who is a bit buxom relate? I said “isn’t that self-defeating?” Obviously not…I think women should learn to look in the mirror… (Interview with Marilyn Kirschner.)

There was a museum collection of some of her outfits, you can get the book.

M.K.: When I walked around the exhibit there were groups of women who were talking out loud and their conversations were unbelievable, because most of them could not believe that you actually wore those clothes out. Many said, “Oh she probably designed that just for the exhibit….” They did not understand that these were actually your clothes worn by you in almost the exact way they were exhibited. (Interview with Marilyn Kirschner.)

And, friend Swiss Girl would want me to add, what a relief not to see Plastic Surgery Face:

In other news, I'm behind on many other blog postings, I know. My Star Wars one is still sitting there, very near to being finished. Also, my new New York friend has some great stories I want to share with you. And then there were some responses I wanted to write to two other blogs... ahhh!

But I'm all a-kerfuffle with my new job. Though it's part-time so far, it started on Thursday and things need doing ASAP. Things will only slow down as the week goes. And if they don't slow down, well, that'll be good too. It'll mean I'm convincing my new employer that I'm super useful to her. ;-) So in the meantime I'll probably just pop in here with shorties like this posting. Let me say, though, so far I'm pretty lurving this job. Let's hope I do well. !! Meeplies!

          

The Story of Haley Cat: An Autobiography

NOTE: Earlier Sunday I published a bunch of pictures of my old cats and myself when I was in school, and when Haley first arrived (before Evil Minion.) Those two old cats died in the last couple years. Haley says she killed them. I thought you might like to read the confession she wrote, on the eve of the second cat's death, so I also reproduced that here. So in summary: I do not have a cat with cancer. Our old tabby and our old white cat are, alas, already rolling in kitty heaven. This is just a slice of history.


A Tender Goodbye to Sherry, by Haley Teh Cat

Once upon a time there was a beautiful cat named Haley and she lived in a one-cat household, and she was...

Due to the weak and despicable nature of her original servants, she was brought to a shelter, and went to from being the ruler of all she surveyed, to being a number. A number!

I am that cat, and this is my story.

At the shelter I was forced to unleash my Great and Terrible powers

and was successfully released to a smaller shelter where I had to live with...

the wild things.

With much persuading, and by my innate photogenic qualities

I was passed on to an unwitting foster lady.

This was not my end goal, however. There was a disgusting number of dogs and cats in this house.

When lady's daughter came to visit, I sensed in her a cat-only lover, and this time unleashed my Awesome Power to Charm. ("Ooh I'm defenseless! Get me out of here!")

Needless to say this fool talked her foolish mate into adopting me, and flew me thousands of miles to her home.

Her SMALL home. Where there were already TWO OTHER CATS.

Well.

This could not be. There can only be One Cat to Rule Them All:

I tried unleashing My Great and Terrible powers and demanded they get rid of the other cats or find me a better home. But the two idiots *loved* and *accepted me as I was.* So I tried unleashing my Awesome Power to Charm. The idiots thought this meant I was finally settling in.

I drove the Striped One to pee EVERYWHERE.

But still they would not get rid of him. I picked the most EVIL BATTLES with the White One. Still no response except to incarcerate me more and more in a small room.

I bided my time. I deigned to play with the Striped One and flattered him by asking him to teach me how to jump and catch moths. Soon I learned what I needed to know--he had a weak heart. It was nothing to replace his heart medication with sugar pills, and after much patience the Striped One was gone. I did miss him a little, for even the heir to the universe likes a playmate, but he was too loved by the idiots. He could not stay.

Since October I have been able to focus all my powers on the elusive White One. The one with the power, the... Top Cat.

How I chafed and fumed under his reign of terror--the way he took the best nap spots, and beat me when playing with the cat dancer toy. But I turned those games against him by irradiating his cat dancer, leading to a final diagnosis of cancer.

Who's dancing now biatch!

Soon, very soon, it will all be over.

I shall finally move from being...

Princess of Quite A Lot

to

Queen of Everything.

White Cat, you were a worthy foe.

...but there's a new sheriff in town.

These songs are dedicated to you, old man.

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again


I am the best
I seem to stand out from the rest
My intention's
To be more than an honorable mention


stay off my back
or I will attack
and you don't want that


I'm a Killer Queen
Gunpowder, Gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime

(I'd say "see you in heaven" ...but we all know I'll be somewhere warmer.)


      

Retro Kitty Weekend

 

Here are some photos from about 2005-2008, at the end of my BA in Political Science, and during my Poli MA when I was also a Teaching Assistant.

Tigernan, or Nombly, was an anxious, peaceable tabby. A cuddler, always in the room with the people. The one cat with whom my friend Gilby felt comfortable (he still uses his name when playing online games.) He was my husband's soul mate, until we had to put him down two years ago. When Haley came to town he tentatively enjoyed playing with her, but she confused him. He also started peeing everywhere, even after the household settled down.

Lord Sherringham, or Sherry or Bones, was a long-haired white cat with one blue eye and one green eye. He was cool, laid back, only cuddled when he got older. Played rough. Top cat. Avoided trouble, but if he had to fight--look out. Whenever Nombly came home from the vet he didn't recognize him for a day or two, threw a shitfit cause he thought it was a home invasion. So you can imagine how he reacted to Haley. We had to put him down  less than a year after Nombly.

 

Sherry and Haley were mortal enemies at first, and even after they learned to tolerate each other she loved to bait him. Which is why she gets little sympathy when Evil Minion baits her. In a shocking blog post, Haley admitted to murdering both Bones and Nombly--I'll repost that here later, you'll see what I mean. So it's possible she'll get the last laugh against EM too.

So here I was, angry at the paper I was writing...


But cats are so helpful...


  




Lo! Bursting from the stats books in he nick of time! It's Quantitative Methods Cat!


 "Well the answer is so clear, so I have to explain it to you again?"
 

Skip this article, it's very dull.

 

They're less helpful with grading...

 

Here are the Many Faces of Homework Pain (and sometimes literal pain because my headaches were at their peak, just before I finally went to a neurologist.)


(My brother says this one should be my author picture.)



 

That's a special mixture of headache/cold/and Foucault pain (wanted to sleep sooo badllllyyy).


Freezing in the computer lab pain while running stats pain:
 

(Which made the loan of this PC by a friend, so I could run the stats software on it from home, all the more wonderful. Thank-you Lord Vidal. OH MY DAYS did that ever help.)

I did what I could to stay sane...

Soy ice cream

 

 Sneaking Heyer on the side

Chair dancing

Tea

Hair dye

 And of course cats:

 

But 5 years of this wore us all down...

 

...to drug use (note the spoon! sob)...

And even led to madness.
 

 (Or pissed offness, at any rate.)

But at the end of the degree, after I edited the very last splitch of my research paper, messy haired and in jammies, I took this photo--a reproduction of my friend Gilby's famous Victory pose after the famous game of Survivor played amongst our friends.