Dig Duggars

So here's what's been up with the Duggars.  I kind of stopped watching after all of the episodes were about dentist appointments so I caught up this past weekend when they had a mother's day marathon. I haven't posted about them in like a year and in that year they have seriously had two kids that aren't twins.  This is nuts because in the past year most people in the world have had zero kids and some people have had one kid.  So two is really a lot for a year. 

In December or November, J'Michelle had a premature baby named Josie.  Some people are saying this is a little sign from God that they should stop having kids.  I think that's BS though, because plenty of people get pre-eclampsia and have babies when they are young and only on their first and second kid.  If anything, I say it's a sign from God that they should keep on having kids because it is obviously a miracle that 1 pound Josie didn't just slide on out when there was trouble brewing in the ol' uterus.

So Josie is in an incubator and whatnot in Little Rock, but the Duggars live in Bumblefuck, so they decided to move most of the family to a little house in Little Rock so they could be near the hospital where Josie is at.  Two thoughts about that. 1. The house was a historical site. What historical site, interested in actually preserving history, would let a family with 19 kids into their house?! (minus 3 because Josh was tending to his own homefront and John David and Justin (?) were tending to the Duggar homestead). 2. The home was originally built by some lady who was a big supporter of birth control.  The irony was not lost on JimBob, who pointed it out to the kids on moving day.  The house only had 1 bathroom, as opposed to the 8 bathrooms or something that they have in their regular house.  One of the girls pointed out that they had basically been living out of the bus for the past year, because they have gone on so many trips -- presumably to make the show interesting. 

Most of the episodes involved sitting around in the hospital talking about what a miracle Josie is and crying, neither of which I particularly care for.  The Duggar episodes I really like are when they show off their religious fanaticism, which just wasn't as evident in these episodes.  For instance, two of my favorite Duggar episodes are when they go to the Creation museum (amazing!) and when they go to some place where you can dig for diamonds and the proprietor notes that the site where they are digging is a million years old or something and JimBob just chuckles and is pretty much like "haha. She's means 6,000 years old...we all know the earth isn't a million."  Anyway there is none of that in the episodes I watched.  The closest was how JimBob basically forces the oldest girls to donate blood based on some passage in the Bible about blood.  Meh.  The most remarkable part about that was that I was like "wait don't you have to be 16 or 18 or something to donate blood?" Which obviously the girls are, you just kind of forget because their development is a little stunted.

So this whole thing culminated in Josie being allowed to come home.  She was still very little when they brought her home...like 4 pounds or something even though she was already 4 months old.  So, to be honest, she was kind of creepy looking.  Then they put her in this pink crocheted hat that had brown yarn on it that looked like it was supposed to look like curly brown hair.  On this fetus-looking infant.  That whole thing was kind of horrifying. Then they had to take her back because she couldn't poop.  I guess she had to go back to the hospital again after that, too, but I just read about that and didn't watch the episode. Apparently she is still there.

Overall the whole thing with Josie just doesn't interest me.  I don't care for a Baby Story or anything like that.  I like the Duggars because their lifestyle fascinates me.  But, really, all of the specials and things about how much laundry they have and how much food they buy and how they run the household has all been done.  Josie being born prematurely was probably a good coincidence in terms of ratings and maintaining viewer interest, but it just doesn't hold mine.

Their family friends the Bates, who also have 17 kids have made a couple appearances this season.  One when the Duggars went to help the Bates build an addition to their house (which according to my boyfriend was shoddy work. So I would like to see a special about the toxic mold that ends up in the Bates house) and one when the Bates came to visit Josie in the hospital.  In both episodes the Duggars and Bates shared space that at a maximum would be comfortable for a family of 6.  There has been much speculation that the Duggar-Bates unions are essentially forums for arranged marriages.  And that is what I would really like to see more of.  The older kids are in their early 20's and need to get out of the house.  That's too old to still be at home.  And if marriage is the only way out, then get those kids married off!

Who Wants to Be a Millanaire!

I am auditioning for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the 17th.  I have to fill out an application beforehand.

These are the questions:

. Quirks, rituals, superstitions…What makes you unique?

2. How would winning $1 million change your life?

3. What is one thing you do that makes people laugh?

4. If you could nominate yourself as best-_____ or “most likely to_____,” what would be your vote?

5. What do you do for fun?

6. You’d never believe it but I once…

7. Why do you want to be on Millionaire?  

Any input as to what I could put to make me stand out?

Updates and Thoughts

1. In one month and three days I will be on my way to Hawaii with my boyfriend, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend. How excited am I?! Especially since all I have to pay for is my airfare...and, you know, everything else...but no hotel!

2. I am working on getting in bikini shape for the next month, which will be good. Apparently when I decided to postpone my duathlon, I also gave myself permission to binge eat and nap excessively and it's gotten out of control.

3. As part of bikini-shape plan, I have been riding my new bike. Which I am very excited about. It's a road bike, so a lot lighter and faster than my old bike, which is fun.

4. Bea Arthur: Ok, so it's too bad that she died and all, even though she was 86 and it's not really that surprising, but for some reason keep acting shocked...but I kind of think the outpouring of grief among people I know and in blogs I read is kind of ridiculous. Seriously, look at the imdb...except for a few guests spots she hasn't been in anything since Golden Girls ended. So, it's not like it's going to be a big loss and that her career has ended in its prime and the tv world is now going to be bereft of all of the new and amazing works that Bea Arthur would have produced. So, if for some reason you were some huge Bea Arthur fan, she will still be on Lifetime for an hour a day in a mediocre show from the late 80's about single middle-aged women that for some reason has become a cult phenomenon in the 21st century. Plus, Maude is actually way cooler. She had an abortion! Like, only a few years after they quit having couples on tv sleep in seperate beds!

5. When I was little we watched MASH as a family a lot, and I always liked the character Radar because he was gentle and nerdy and had a teddy bear. Big Bird's teddy bear was also named Radar, and because I watched both shows around the same era I always associated MASH Radar with Big Bird's Radar. Turns out, that wasn't a coincidence. From the Sesame Street Wiki: The stuffed bear was named by Big Bird's performer Caroll Spinney as a tribute to actor Gary Burghoff, who played Walter "Radar" O'Reilly on M*A*S*H.^[2] The two met at a taping of Hollywood Squares, and the bear's name is a dual tribute, reflecting Burghoff's Radar character, who brought a teddy bear to Korea, and the fact that in his private life, Burghoff is known as a painter of birds and an activist for bird preservation.
Fun!

6. I also learned from the Sesame Street Wiki that this is what the original Snuffy looked like:
Scary!

I used to be Team Jack...

But now I'm totes Team Sawyer.



They ain't my people, hoss.


Also, this is my 100th post on blogger.

That's how we do in Clinton Hill

So I was doing my grocery shopping on Saturday at my local Pioneer supermarket. And I'm in the produce section, rifling through leafy greens to find ones that haven't turned mushy brown, cuz that's what you have to do at the Pioneer. And then I see this dude over at the deli, who looks a lot like Food Network celeb Ted Allen...but surely, Ted Allen -- who on many episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy lamented that the proletariat does not enjoy duck pate -- does not shop at the Pioneer. Even though they renovated it a month or so ago, so they no longer store produce on the filthy floor. And they added some organic/natural foods. And they added some fancy cheeses (by my standards, keeping in mind here that I am pretty pissed that the $1.99 cheese I like to buy increased to $2.49). But still, this is no gourmet market. This is where I and the 2,000 denizens of the Lafayette Gardens projects shop. Not Ted Allen.
Turns out, he does. Because I am the master of finding things out about people on the internet, I learned that Ted Allen actually lives a few blocks from me.
And you may be saying to yourself, wait Caitlin, don't you live in the ghetto? Wasn't someone shot on your doorstep like a year ago? And you are partially right, friend. But, as many visitors have observed, one only has to travel a few blocks to get to very nice brownstones and less gang activity. Like, a few blocks in Ted Allen's direction...
So I find an article in New York Magazine from October 2008 in which he discussess his move to Clinton Hill. I found another article with his address, but I am withholding it out of respect for his privacy. What if one of my readers from Kansas decides to stalk him?!
My favorite part of the interview is as follows: When's the last time you drove a car?
Today. I love Clinton Hill, but the grocery stores suck.

Well said, Ted. But, I suppose we all have to make concessions once in a while.

why doesn't anyone i know watch Lost?

Cuz man is it good this season. I think the best since the 1st season. Maybe I should start perusing the message boards or something.

The good old days weren't always good, or, I am sure one day I will look back on these years with nostalgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmUwVA3BqI

Anyone else who has posted the above 30 rock clip in their blog has done so to talk about what a hottie Jon Hamm is. Well not me. I am posting about Oswald. Because I HAVE Oswald in my building. I didn't know that was like, a thing, in New York. But it must be. If you don't watch the clip and didn't see the episode, basically Liz Lemon goes to give her neighbor his mail and a crazy guy answers the door. And then they explain that it's Oswald who lives in the basement and helps out sometimes.

Well, picture Oswald...but make him black, mute, and an alcoholic and make Liz Lemon's fancy tv writer's building into a dumper social worker's building and then you have my apartment and the guy from this post who lives in my basement and sometimes washes the window in the door.

I don't know his name, so in my head I usually call him Chris because sometimes he wears a Dickies-type work short with Chris sewn on, even though I am pretty sure it came from the garbage. Maybe I will switch it to Oswald.

One time I saw him stabbing a caged rat with what appeared to be a sharpened stick. True story.

because I know everyone was wondering...

So, I do love the Duggars and their insane number of kids...I do not love crazy Octuplet mom. This is for a variety of reasons. One being that the Duggars can support their children and Octuplet mom can't. The second being that, while I do not agree with their beliefs, the Duggars believe they are doing this because it is what God wants them to do and I can respect that...crazy Octuplet mom just wanted "one more girl" and is selfish. Also, the Duggars have at least a little breathing room between their infants. Sure 8 kids under 10 is unreasonable...8 kids in infancy is fucked up. Finally, I think J'Michelle Duggar is a saint, and Octuplet mom sounds a little white trashy to me.

so this is the new year, and i have no resolution

this new year feels particularly anticlimactic to me. New year's never feels like a particular starting over time for me, I think my birthday usually is, but total caitlin makeover is an ongoing process anyway. And I don't do resolutions. I think sometimes I do a little reflection of the past year in my blog, but I don't feel like it -- lots of ups and downs and changes like every other year :)


Instead I am going to write about Ruby.

Here is a video from YouTube with her talking about her Rubyisms:


I have a really low attention span for youtube videos---this one is 7 minutes and I only watched half of it. BUT if you like watching youtube videos it's a longer look.


She is just so cute and you want to be her friend and you feel angry at everyone who ever stares at her or laughs at her. And it's just kind of an interesting reaction, because if I saw someone her size on the street I would probably say how gross it was and stare. And then I would spend the next 3 days talking with everyone I know about obesity and how one gets that large, and probably my own body image issues because I like to bring it back around to me. But I like Ruby and really want to support her. And every time she slips up on her diet, I don't think to myself that it's her weakness and that's why she's so big. I see it as a normal slip-up that we all have and I want her to keep going. So. Watch it.

My other tv related comment is about the whopper virgin commercials. If you haven't seen them, Burger King is supposedly going to these extremely remote areas and giving people who have never tasted either a Big Mac or a Whopper a taste test and then I guess the whopper virgins (a term that makes me extremely uncomfortable) vote. Anyway, people are all kinds of outraged because there is all this hunger in these areas and these people are going in with basically the epitome of American excess and giving it to only a few people without addressing hunger. I suppose that's all true, but I am more concerned about their tummies. I would assume that most of these diets are vegetarian. And if they consume meat it certainly isn't all cooked in grease and shit. Isn't going to make them really sick? Is there a follow up? Does Pepto-Bismol go in with a taste test between them and Immodium? Ridic.

sunny days sweeipin' the clouds away

It was a beautiful fall day yesterday and I was walking around Brooklyn with my friend and he remarked that the day reminded him of Sesame Street. Now, the day did not remind me of Sesame Street, although walking around in Brooklyn often does. But, what it really made me think about was how much most things remind me of tv shows that I watched growing up. Perennial favorites for references are Punky Brewster and The Cosby Show. As in: Oh, I see that person took the door off the fridge when they put it out for garbage. You're supposed to do that I learned from the episode of Punky Brewster where Cherie gets trapped in the fridge and Punky and Margo have to give her CPR and Allen is no help because he was fucking around when they learned how to do it in class. Or: Oh, I love to sew but I don't think I would ever make shirts...they would end up looking like the faux designer shirt Denise made for Theo with one sleeve to long and all kinds of messed up.
As a matter of fact, if I could compare everything in my life to a tv show from the 80's I probably would.
As I get older, my other TV favorite reference is Friends. As in a recent discussion with my friend about having to go out to lunch for a goodbye party for a co-worker and ordering the second cheapest thing on the menu only to learn the tab was divided equally among the entire group so now I got spaghetti marinara and I have to pay for your shrimp alfredo. Both of us were reminded of the episode of Friends where the 3 poorest friends: Rachel, Joey and Phoebe (at the time -this was while Rachel was still a waitress and Joey wasn't yet Dr. Drake Ramore) are lamenting that they have to go out to fancy dinners with the other three when they can't afford it.
Although the ubiquitous NYC reference show in recent years is Sex and the City, I find that I can in no way relate and it rarely enters my discussions.
But here is my secret confession. The show I think about almost every day, but don't have the guts to bring up in polite conversation: Ghostwriter.
Here are instances where I think about it:
1. Ghostwriter was set in Brooklyn, I live in Brooklyn.
2: Alex's family owns a bodega which I had only ever heard of from the show. Now I go to a bodega several times a week.
3: Community gardens. I pass at least one, and sometimes two, community gardens when I walk to the gym. And every time. Every goddamn time I walk past I think of the Ghostwriter story arc in which the neighborhood is getting sick from vegetables grown in the community garden because some company had buried toxic waste barrels in the garden.
4: There are countless other instances in which Ghostwriter is brought to mind and I am too ashamed to write about them here.

So what tv shows do you find yourself referring to frequently?

TV endorses all of your vices

So even if you have just perused my blog because you stumbled upon it when you googled "vermin extermination guilt" or "can mouse poop fumes make you sick" you know that there are pretty much two things at my core:
1. A love of delicious desserts.
2. A love of television.

But last night as I was watching TV and eating a bowl of ice cream, I saw the following two commercials run back to back:



A commercial letting you know that High Fructose Corn Syrup is ok! And then! A commercial encouraging you to stay at home and watch TV during ABC's week of premieres.

Even I think that's ridiculous.

I wish that these commercials followed:
One of those "get out and play" ads
Wilford Brimley talks about the 'beetus
a commercial endorsing the rape of babies
and then finally a "the more you know" ad about protecting children

Judge Karen

My Episode Airs 9/16! Here it's on the CW at 1:30. I hope I can get my DVR by then!

Productivity

I really want to go to the gym. I really do. But there is a Kids By The Dozen marathon on TLC. I was going to go after this last episode, BUT the episode that's on right now is about a family that named their kids Fiddler on the Roof names and they converted to Amish...they call it Plain. Loves it!

Fall Line-Up

OK, this is to address Amy's question about the new 90210.
My thoughts are:
Do I think it will be good? Not at all.
Will I watch it? Most definitely.
And, assuming it's not unbearable, I will likely watch the whole season.

I love TV so much. Unashamedly.
I was watching commercials for new shows and shows I love that are returning and I get really excited. I don't care that it makes me the equivalent of a shut-in to have 3 hours of shows per night that I watch. It doesn't bother me that I care more about what's going on with Blaire and Serena than John and Barack.

I am proud that I am working on becoming a morning person so I can go to the gym in the morning and be available for my shows in the evening.

Because I think it's a sentiment that bears repeating, here is a post from my myspace blog from last year:
i don't like it when people write anything the lines of "kill your television", "television rots your brain", "i don't have time to watch tv" or "there are so many more things to do than watch tv".
bullshit. every time you come home you wanna go white water rafting or reorganize your kitchen cabinets? of course not. sometimes you want to come home and watch my super sweet 16 and just sit....if you don't, once you're done reading vegan cookbooks and re-enter the real world you won't be able to have a conversation with normal people, because normal people don't want to hear about all of the different ways to process the soy bean.
but more than that i hate people who write "i don't have/make time for tv, but when i do...." and then they go on to list about 25 shows that are all American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and SpongeBob....Eff that...you can't have both...you can't appeal to the people listening to classical music and studying walking sticks, and the mindless masses who love American Idol...it's one or the other....either you don't watch tv because you're too busy loving dragons and all mythical creatures or you're normal...own it.

the importance of being earnest

I think that Beauty and the Geek is possibly the most underrated reality show on television. Words cannot express how much I love this show. Blog readers from my college years may remember my obsession with Beauty and the Geek and Average Joe. Which I personally would finance if they wanted to bring it back. I'm kidding, I could not finance it, I have been eating beans and rice and tuna for the past week.
On some seasons of BatG the beauties will have a hidden smart side. Not this season, though, apparently. In tonight's episode they are playing flag football and the biggest concern of one of the girls was that she would get dirty or that her outfit wouldn't match. One of the guys' biggest concerns? That he would break his glasses. And that is why I love this show. I love nerds. I really, really do. I love the sincerity and earnestness of these guys. I love how they are so deadpan all the time. I love humor where you can't tell if it's humor. I love quotes like, "I prefer my games to be pure....like chess....or a rubik's cube"
The girls are interchangeable and look the same. But the guys. How can I pick a favorite?
Is it Jim, the aforementioned cube aficionado? This kid is 21! Why does he look 45?


Is it Matt? His glasses situation makes me uncomfortable and I imagine I would have a hard time looking him in the face.

Is it Tommy? The token cute nerd and self-proclaimed sweater vest enthusiast whose presence will make the girls reconsider their stereotype of nerds. He already made out with one of them. Play on playa.


I am writing this blog and watching at the same time. A girl just got eliminated and learned the lesson they all seem to learn: "You just need to give beauties a chance. And geeks the same"

god pity the damage of calamity jane

If you're reading this, you know that the url is caitastrophejane. I think I'm really funny, you see, because it's like Calamity Jane. And Jane is my middle name. And then Caitastrophe is like Caitlin and Catastrophe. I think I'm soooo clever. I did not really know much about Calamity Jane, I just thought it was kind of badass. But, I just finished reading Deadwood by Pete Dexter, which is the book the series Deadwood was based on.
Calamity Jane in that book is a sad tomato. She's obsessed with Wild Bill and he just ignores her. She claims to have been married to him but no one can find any proof. She cries a lot. In real life, she was apparently immune to smallpox and went around nursing people who were sick. In the book there is an implication that she is actually a carrier of the disease, because about 2 weeks after she shows up anywhere there is an outbreak. She's not happy unless she is taking care of other people, and somewhat paradoxically, she is described as mannish. Granted, she's not going to win any beauty contests.
But I'm pretty crushed by this whole revelation. I thought she was all a wearing man clothes, fightin the red man, gun slingin', whiskey swillin, hitching post at the saloon, don't-fuck-with-me, wild west broad. Turns out she was just as much of a sniffling sad sack as the rest of us.

I'm told that her character in Deadwood the series is slightly less pathetic, but obviously, none more attractive. She looks like a bag lady and she's sloppy drunk the whole time. According to something that I came across in my ongoing efforts to find some CJ redeeming qualities I also learned that in Season 3 they make her gay. Of course. Because someone who looks like that could never be straight. I mean, really, what man would want her? Not Wild Bill. And that dude even had gonorrhea.

What a disappointment.

If she lived now, what would be her modern equivalent?