Varmints. And Gourmet Cuisine.

I am selecting vegetables at the Home Depot. Again.

Note: My earlier vegetable selections were eaten down to teeny tiny nubs by a varmint.

Note: A varmint is defined as any critter in your yard with beady eyes and irritating habits.

Note: This particular varmint is going to regret his practice of eating my vegetables to nubs. I am sprinkling hot pepper sauce on my veggie leaves. Tonight.

Note: That's what I'm talking about.

A Dude is buying vegetables with his skinny-legged son, who is using the cart as a spaceship, probably.

Dude hands Skinny-Legged Boy the veggie pack and Skinny-Legged Boy flies the pack through the air and lands it in the cart. He is making flying noises and shooting noises. Boy noises, yes.

Skinny-Legged Boy is naming each vegetable with delight as the veggies fly through the air. Corn! Eggplant! Snap Peas!

Skinny-Legged Boy wants more tomatoes, but Dude says we have plenty already.

You can never have too many tomatoes, I say, because it's true. Everyone knows it.

Dude is agreeing and saying stuff but I have lost focus until he says, I am a gourmet chef, so I blah-blah-blah.

My brain is stuck. A gourmet chef? What does that mean? Isn't that statement just a little bit redundant? Is there such thing as a Non-Gourmet chef, specializing in mediocre cuisine? Doesn't the term chef already connote a certain level of expertise versus, say, a cook?

Oh, never mind. I have bigger fish to fry.

Tonight, I become a gourmet chef. For varmints.

Heck, yes!

Cats. A Real Drag.

I am driving home from The Home Depot with practically the entire garden center in the back of my big purse, aka, my aging SUV.

Rubi is sitting beside me on the center divider, just observing things.

Note: Sometimes I wonder what she observes when she sits there. She sits very tall with her chin tilted upward, probably to see over the dashboard. When I point out something of potential interest to her, she looks with great intent to wherever I gesture.

Right now I am gesturing at a lady walking down the street, holding her cat.

Rubi looks, with great intent.

The lady is placing the cat down on the sidewalk. The cat is on a leash.

Note: Silly lady.

The cat sits there.

The lady walks away, about five feet or so which is, of course, the length of the leash. She tugs on the leash.

The cat flops over. The cat is on its side on the sidewalk, yes.

The lady picks up the cat and then places it back down on the sidewalk.

Note: Silly lady.

The cat sits there.

Again, she walks away, about five feet or so which is, of course, the length of the leash. Again, she tugs on the leash.

The cat flops over. The cat is on its side on the sidewalk, yes.

Note: Good luck, Pal.

Perhaps the phrase Look what the cat dragged in could be rephrased to suit the moment. How about, Look, I dragged the cat in!

Heck, yes!

Oh, Brendan Fraser. Oh My. Oh Dear.

Oh dear.

Brendan, what has happened?

I loved him in Blast From the Past. Oh my lucky stars! A negro!

I loved him in The Mummy. Yummy. Yummy in the Mummy.

Today he is making sidewalk chalk with Martha.

His face is puffy. His belly is hanging over his pants, a little. He is talking about his new movie, Furry Vengeance. He is showing a clip of his movie. In the clip, he is waking in the night. There is music playing. He steps into the living room. There are rodents and I don't know, maybe marsupials and moles and voles and squirrels, probably, in his living room. All over. And they are dancing. To the song, Freak Out and I kid you not.

Oh, Brendan.

What has happened?

Bummer. No, Really.

I am in my pilates class. In a new spot. Usually, we have designated spots. The spots are not actually designated by the instructor as in assigned seating. Or assigned mat-laying. Our spots are designated because that's what we do. I belong in my spot. I belong in the second row. Between Katie and Pam.

Some new lady in class has messed up the whole system. She took Debbie's spot and Debbie took my spot and I ended up in the back row, sort of, squeezed in too close to the girls that I don't like although I have no good reason for the dislike, except that I covet their implants. A little.

So, I spend the whole class looking at new bums.

I am used to the old bums.

Note: I can go so far as to say that the old bums were my favorites.

I am trying not to look at the bums.

One is a Mom-Bum, for sure. It is flat, wide and saggy in its exercise wear, yes. I worry that my bum looks like that Mom-Bum. I look away. At another bum.

This bum is bubbly and perky and has a perma-wedgie in its exercise gear. I want, badly, to walk over and give the pants a good yank to remove the wedgie, but such behavior in a pilates class is frowned upon.

I am tired of this whole bum-thing. I can't wait to get back to my spot. Where I belong. This situation is really bumming me out.

Heck, yes!

A Trashy Trophy Wife, Yes.

I feel lighter. Not necessarily the bounce-in-your-step I've conquered-my-demons- lighter, but lighter, nevertheless.

I feel that way because I am 1200 pounds lighter, more than half a ton, for those inclined to measure weight in tonnage, yes.

Note: As a Certified Weighmaster in the (great) State of California, I understand such propensity. Seriously. Weighmaster. How fantastic is that?

Nevertheless (my new pet word, obviously), the Hub and I hauled 1200 pounds of junk and/or crap to the Transfer Station yesterday. The 1200 pounds did not include the metal, wood and rubber recyclables which may, I fear, bring our tonnage to nearly a ton, yes.

Which bears this question: Who has a ton of crap in their garage?

Note: Where do I live? A trailer park?

Note: I am not denigrating the trailer park, for I know a few Trophy Wives who live there. Or I know a few Trophy Wives who may have driven through. Or may have seen it as they have driven by. But still.

The Transfer Station, a dump, yes, did not take credit cards, so Hub and I had the luxury of driving back into the nearby hip winery town and buying two Diet Cokes and some polenta at the grocery store to get cash back.

It may seem odd to carry polenta to a 14' U-Haul filled with nearly a ton of crap.

But a Trophy Wife's got to eat.

Heck, yes!

Pardon Me. Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?

I am driving in my aging SUV, heading to pilates with my mind full of important things, such as but not limited to pilates and driving. The local radio station is playing a lame hometown commercial with poorly written copy and a weird voiceover that is too loud and is followed with a crazy jingle, yes.

This jingle catches my attention. Because it's catchy, yes.

Sebastopol. Sebastopol. The Sample-Possum Festival in Sebastopol.

No kidding.

The most liberal, granola-eating, hybrid-driving city in an admittedly liberal, granola-eating, hybrid-driving county is having a festival to commemorate the tastiness of the possum?

Sebastopol, a Drug-Free Zone and a Nuclear-Free Zone and a Wi-Fi Free Zone, seriously, on account of those wacky radio waves that transmit signals that bounce around in our heads and cause either a) brain damage or b) fill our minds with evil, conservative rhetoric resulting in brain damage is advocating eating possum? The city that Saves the Whale and Saves the Laguna Salamander and Saves the Russian River Smelt or whatever fish that needs saving over there is now eating possum? And celebrating it?

Heck, yes!

Note: Simmer down. As it turns out, Sebastopol is celebrating the Apple Blossom Festival. Which sounds eerily and delightedly, like a Possum Festival. With sampling.

May the possums rest well tonight.

So, Kate Gosselin. The Tribe Has Spoken.

So, Kate Gosselin.

What a glorious experience on 'Dancing with the Stars'. She laughed. Wait, no she didn't. She cried. A lot. But she cried those kind of tears that are dabbed with a kleenex, like it's allergies or something. She grimaced. But that's her normal face. And she danced. Let's not forget how she danced.

Note: I changed my mind. I am happy to forget, personally.

Carry on.