PlazaJen: Passion Knit

James just realized Michael Bolton was crooning, droning, whining about this time when a man loves a woman, and I'm grateful, because he changed the Music Choice channel and saved me from throwing the television out the window. Blessedly, he changed channels on Whitney Houston five minutes ago, but then was so engrossed in his computer he didn't notice what was on and what was on was MICHAEL F'N BOLTON. I am reeeeally good at finding a "happy place" where I can tune stuff out for at least a few minutes when I'm on the computer, a skill honed when James would try to get my goat by tuning in to "The Man Show". But much like the inexorable mosquito in your ear after you've zipped your tent up, even Michael Bolton can break through my tuned-out zone. And break through he does. I usually start recognizing my irritation by looking over at the television, in disbelief, much like one might look at a five-year-old standing up on a vinyl bench seat in a diner, banging a spoon on the window and screaming about Mister Pibbles and shrieking, hitting notes so high you marvel that your water glass is still intact. Usually this look is shifted into "amazed mode" and on to the parent, who has found their own Happy Place by ignoring everything but their soup and is seemingly unaware that the aforementioned child has sterilized all small mammals in a 50-yard radius with their keening, unfathomable scream while drumming out a GNR solo on the window. That astonishment and fear is contained in the second look at the television as my brain starts to comprehend that yes, indeed, we are sitting here listening to Michael Bolton. MY GOD WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US!? And then James surfaces from his Tuned Out Place and goes, "Oh my GOD!" and flips channels. We have now landed on a Prince Sexology series and, as always, I am astonished at how many Prince songs my husband knows. It always makes for some entertaining road trip time, playing Prince in the car. JWo can hit the squeaks and squeals with amazing ease. Thank God he sings Prince and not Michael Bolton, we'd be in big trouble.

Speaking of road trips, we're off to St.Louis tomorrow, where I will sit in honor as the First Lady of Waterfowl at the East Siders' banquet tomorrow night. I'm guessing I will get to wear a tiara fashioned from duck bills and feathers? Who knows. (Hubby is the Board Chairman for the Missouri Waterfowlers' Association. I'm royalty by marriage, I guess.) The big event part of this trip for me? Going to the new Crate & Barrel store in Brentwood. Yippee ki yay, mo-fo, I got my retail therapy ON, and I plan to come back Sunday cured of EVERYTHIN' that ails me. See ya Sunday when I return with Packages of Happiness - and a duck bill tiara.