Tongue tied

OK, so I commend Yoplait on its ten-year effort to fight breast cancer.

And it rocks that it and its parent company General Mills have already given $14 million for breast cancer research.

And Yoplait yogurt is really yummy, especially the smooth and creamy orange Julius flavor they came out with last year. For that, I forgive them for cashing in on consumer sympathy and in effect capitalizing on a disease with the "Save a Lid Save a Life" campaign (As if. We get it already, you want us to buy yogurt).

However, I have to draw the line on props with its latest spin on that campaign. "Lick a Lid, Save a Life. Together we can lick breast cancer."

Esshs. It hurts me. They went from"Vive la Yoplait" to licking breasts?

Together we can lick breast cancer. Together... we can lick breast cancer. Together we can lick breast cancer. (it just doesn't work, does it?) Someone should have read that outloud. If they had, they surely wouldn't have made the TV ad.

They did make a TV ad, though. They made an ad that features women wantonly French kissing Yoplait's signature pink aluminum yogurt lids and then tucking them into envelopes .... which they also lick.

Obvioulsy they've tapped out the 22-45 American woman money pool and are now focusing on the male 21-55 demographic.

This beats a t-shirt I saw in a South Carolina Piggly Wiggly a few years ago that said, "We support healthy breasts." (why didn't I buy that shirt?)

Offensiveness aside, I wondered if my licking and stuffing would really pay off, so I did the numbers.

For every pink lid mailed Yoplait will donate 10 cents to raise money to battle breast cancer. I would have to eat (or at least open and lick the lid of) three cups of yogurt every day for four months — or 360 containers — to raise the rather paltry sum of $36.

On average, each low-fat cup contains about 80 calories and costs about 80 cents. Multiply by three, that's 240 calories and $2.40 a day. Add it up and you get $288 spent on yogurt and 28,000 calories consumed.

Yeaaahhh, no thanks. We're ya hopin' we wouldn't add that up?

I have my own fight-breast-cancer plan. I call it Kitty Bouldin's "Keep your damn tongue to your own damn self" fight breast cancer campaign. KBKYDTTYODSFBCC for short.

I buy a self-adhesive stamp and put it on a self -adhesive envelope. I stuff the envelope with my $280 check (I do love Yoplait and may need that $8 bucks to buy some custard-style over the next couple of months) made out to the National Breast Cancer Foundation and put their address on the front. I seal it, mail it and later at tax time, count it as a charitable contribution.

No licking necessary. Vive la difference?

Put down that Swifter

CNN reports today that rocky planets like Earth form when dust motes around a nascent star gather to form rocks. Rocks collide, and some stick and grow. A Haaavvhard planet-formation theorist compared the process to the common, household dust bunny, saying that after a million years, a dust bunny, like a planet, can get pretty big.

Praise Jesus. Now not only can I make grits and ham biscuits, I can make planets, too.

So last night I'm cleaning up around the house and in doing so did what I sometimes do when I clean, which is put any little scraps of paper I find lying around in my pocket.

Later walking to dog, hands in pockets, I thought maybe I'd come upon previously lost money. I grabbed the paper and held it up close to my face so I could see it in the dark.

Not a million dollars. Not even one dollar. But a million and one tiny, blue, dry cleaning tags.

Urgh. (where has all my pocket money gone?)

Truly, I hate the dry cleaner. I hate dropping the stuff off and I hate remembering to pick it up and I hate the stupid little ticket they give you and expect you to keep up with for three days.

And -- cleaned, pressed clothes aside -- if it comes from the dry cleaner, it's going to be hateful. Those wire hangers? Flimsy and unreliable. The icky, staticky cellophane they drape over my clothes? Curse to it and the space it takes up in my trash can. And these little blue tags, the ones that tell the dry cleaning lady that that blue sport coat belongs to us? Little demons of clutter.

If there are a million in my pocket, how many are there under the sofa?

To heck with 'em.

My only hope is that they find love in soft, dog hair heart of my dust bunnies and stick around long enough to create another planet (which will be suspiciously vacant of dry cleaners).

I'm wondering

Who really thinks John Edwards is sexy?

Nerve asks this question this week, breakin' it down into 51 short thoughts on whether he is or isn't.

Truth is, sometimes he is. He's fit and wears nice suits and has a really, really white smile. If I was needed a date for a charity auction, he'd do in a pinch.

And Nerve is right, he does resemble a soap opera star -- a hunky doctor. A hunky single doctor. A hunky single doctor who lives on a farm. And cooks. And cleans. And gives a good massage. With oils.

But we don't watch soap operas. (We only read about them in the super market check out line.) So we wouldn't know.

But then other times, like when he's campaigning in South Carolina and his accent goes way south or when he poses on the front of "Runners World" magazine wearing his t-shirt tucked into his shorts, I think: not so much.

Speaking of half-breeds, Animal Planet airs the first installation of "Nuts for Mutts" tonight. Billed as the Westminister Dog Show for mutts, dogs compete doing things dogs do best, like licking in inappropriate places and drooling (my dog would win that one -- and he isn't even a mutt).

The event benefits "New Leash on Life Animal Rescue" a wonderful non-profit you should read more about. If you miss it tonight, the show will be back on Oct. 23 and yet again on Oct. 24. (Housewife is happy to promote good causes).

Let's see... what's Martha up to? Oh, that's right. She's in jail.

Good thing Mrs. BSF isn't. Good news, ladies. Brit is taking some time to "chill" (it's her prerogative) and joining the ranks of U.S. housewives everywhere. Check out her blog, where she says she's excited to start a family. We can't help but be excited, too.

Behind every good man...

...there's a woman who can talk right.

Thanks, GW, for pointing that out so eloquently in last night's final debate. [WP] For the record, we approve of Laura's advice -- stand up straight and quit scowling. Bad posture and wrinkles are very unpresidential.

Lynne Cheney is busy giving our nation's leaders a lesson in civility, too.

The Veep's wife accused John Kerry on Wednesday night of "a cheap and tawdry political trick" and said he "is not a good man" after he brought up her daughter's homosexuality at the final presidential debate. [WP]

She's right. It was hard to miss how forced the comment sounded. Even Kerry himself seemed uncomfortable saying it. But a bad man? Lynne, don't even get us started.

Here's yesterday's #1 bad idea: Everyone's favorite trailerwife, Britney Spears, says she wants to take husband Kevin Federline's last name. [Yahoo] Britney Federline. We just aren't sure what to say.

Today's #1 bad idea: Making breast implants available to men. [Boston Globe]. Yikes.

The ever-enterprising Martha Stewart is reportedly considering writing a book in jail (prison diaries?)and publishing it this summer. [CNN]. She's barely been there a week and already she's found something worth writing about. Must be going well.

And finally, here's a Web site I wish I'd found a few weeks ago. Just upload an image of yourself and see how different hairstyles will look on you.

A for effort

Who says romance is dead?

Not a 27-year-old Oklahoma man who staged a break in at his house so that he could be his wife's hero.

CNN reports today that high school teacher Trent Spencer paid two of his students to break in to his home, tie up his wife and steal a stereo. If all went according to plan, Spencer would arrive home mid-robbery, break a board (which he sawed pretty much in half before the event) over one of the kids heads, chase them off then dash to his wife's rescue.

This, he thought, would save his marriage.

But all didn't go according to plan and Mrs. Trent Spencer broke free of the duct tape the boys used to bind her to a chair. Once back on her feet, she called the cops.

Nice try Trent. Next time, maybe just some flowers will do.

You say you want a revolution

I would have loved to have lived in the 50s because of all the wonderful household inventions that came on the market during that decade.


Two words: Tupperware's Wonderbowl

It's true. Take a look back and you'll see that advertisements promised unimaginable efficiency at the push of a button for the American housewife, as well as modern, stainless-steel elegance.

And Americans bought it: In the first five years after World War II, the amount of money spent on household furnishings and appliances rose by an incredible 240 percent.

Who wouldn't buy it? Appliance companies promised freedom from the back-breaking drudgery of housework and the ability to look elegant doing it. One ad pictures a woman in an evening gown preparing a cake by pushing a button. If she wasn't about to dash off to what was obviously an upscale and important party, she'd probably have time to squeeze in a quick tennis game before Ward got home. (As an aside, that ad should have told us that something was terribly amiss, but that's another blog for another day...)

Today, a similar revolution is happening with today's domestic products. Only we've pretty much already made things as easy to use as possible.

As any good Southern lady knows, the only thing left to do is accessorize.

Now we're hard at work on making our functional products cute -- so cute we can't help but use them.

Take, the Lysol "Ready Brush" called a "revolution in toilet bowl cleaning" (is this the same revolution the Beatles sang about?).

Dawn has discovered the "future of dishwashing" with the cutting-edge Wash and Toss.(Dawn also makes a Power Dish Brush. Mind you, it still has to be held by actual human hands to work; however, it does vibrate. But again ... another blog for another day. )

And of course, dusting and mopping have gone precious -- Procter and Gamble's Swifter and Clorox's Ready Mop (of which I'm a fan. It's not any more "ready," per se, than my old sponge mop, but it tops the charts on cute).

I know first hand that all of this is working. I know it's working because even my dad will use these products.

His favorite invention is The Swifter. He swings the thing all over my parent's North Carolina home in his free time, picking up dust for fun. Recently he even took it up a notch.

This came in an email from my mother this morning:

I've got one for you on Dad. You know he loves the Swifter and is always going around the house with it dusting the floors. Well, I saw advertised that they now have a Swifter-Vac, so I got one. After charging it up for twenty-fours hours I used it yesterday and it works pretty good. So when Dad got home I showed it to him and he got the thing and started Swifting and running the vac part at the same time. He was all over the house with the it and said this is the cat's ass. Now he has a new cleaning toy to play with. I wonder how long it will last?

Presumably, Mom, until Swifter comes out with a Swifter+vac+TV remote, in which case you'll have to pry it from his cold, dead hands.

But ours is not to ask why or wonder how long.

Talk right

Last week after winning Talladega for the fifth time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- in a fit of self-deprecating glee -- recalled the memory of his legendary father, Dale Earnhardt, who was killed in the 2001 Daytona 500, declaring, "It don't mean [expletive] right now. Daddy's won here 10 times." [Washington Post]

That got NBC and NASCAR's panties in a bunch, so they fined him $10,000 and docked him 25 points (whatever that means).

Thank you very much NBC for jumping on the George Bush bandwagon and protecting us from evil-doers. Heaven help the networks if the religious right no longer tuned in.

Of course cursing, especially when it's unnecessary, is tacky. We wonder, however, why NBC can't start start tackling the world's larger problems and impose fines for a larger sin -- terrible grammar.

Dale's is pitiful.

He's a 29-year-old man. It's time to talk like a grown-up. If his mother doesn't have enough sense to teach him to talk right, we'll take it upon ourselves.

First, little Dale, deddy's ded. Talking about him in the present tense isn't going to bring him back.

Second, [expletive] isn't a synonym for the word "anything." "Much" would have been a better alternative. We even would have tolerated "a lot." If you absolutely and positively draw a blank and cussin' is all you can think to do, try "crap," though it's not reccommended.

And finally, if it doesn't 'mean anything right now', are we to assume it will mean something in a few minutes? In a week?

Is this some sort of deal you have worked out with the networks to get us to watch the 11 p.m. news?

Dale, you seem like a "say what you mean, mean what you say" kind of man. How about givin' it a try.

Moving on...

My resourceful sister-in-law in Georgia passed on a great tip. Dryer sheets are as indespensible in the home as duct tape and superglue (no wonder they put so many in one box). Use dryer sheets to eliminate odors just about everwhere, including your husband's shoes.

While we like the smell, things that fly and sting don't, so stick one in your back pocket the next time you're working in your yard.

They're also super for picking up dust and, of course, removing static cling for televisions and computer screens. Thanks, MEB!

In other news, finding energy in exercise; good tips for ladies looking for love; save the world and make money, too; and a Virginia favorite, apple cider, falls on hard times.

This and that

The Washington Post reports today that when the final Sunday stats arrive today, "Desperate Housewives" is expected to be the most watched program of last week, and it will have catapulted ABC into first place for the week among the 18-to-49-year-olds the network targets.

Clearly I've missed something, though I can't be sure what.

Speaking of the boob tube, TBS next week unveils "He's A Lady," a Fox-worthy show that hoodwinks 11 dudes who think they've signed up for a show called "All American Man." The winner gets a pile of money in exchange for his dignity.

I'll tune in. Who can resist watching a man wrestle with a pair of panty hose?

On to more important things.

Sarah Jessica Parker told fashionistas at the New Yorker Festival over the weekend that she'd never wear fur. Uh huh, that's nice.

Too bad she's made it known that she doesn't have a problem with $400 leather shoes. Where does she think alligator skin comes from, the leather tree? And certainly she's aware that tanning leather is a risky process that requires tanners (read: humans) to handle toxic, cyanide-based chemicals.

VH frowns on the uninformed (See Oct. 4 post, "Fur sure") . As we said yesterday, please spare us the naked model billboards a la 1995. That goes for you too, Ms. Sell-out-Gap-ad-Parker.

Barbie is a model of diplomacy these days. She settled a tiff with record label MCA over the very deep and moving song "Barbie Girl" by striking a deal to release her own MCA album titled "Barbie Girls." Afterall, there's more than one out there.

And finally, a bit of pure joy.

Now in your spare time you can browse through Boston.com's "featured weddings" , where you can see "I do" photos of people you've never met! It's ingenious, really, because I've been thinking that the five short paragraphs most brides use to describe their dress just isn't giving me the visual I need. (Having said that, some are lovely. Don't miss the album of Kristie and Doug, who were married during a blizzard in Boston.)

Fur sure

Recently I swore off white shoes after Labor Day, but gave a tentative OK to white clothing post August (see "Tacky" Sept. 24).

Fellow blogger Pink Lady asked about season-appropriateness of fur.

Truthfully though, I can't think of any fundamental reason why fur isn't appropriate for seasons other than winter. It is, afterall, luxurious and decadent and wonderful. And we must be sensible. An animal has died so that we may be fashionable, so we best be liberal putting it to good use.

That's not to say some months may be off limits for pratical reasons -- I wouldn't wear a fox collar to an August wedding in Charleston, for example. But that isn't because it would look bad, per se. It's more because I wouldn't want to ruin it with perspiration and spend a small fortune on dry cleaning it (instead, save that money for more fur)

If J Lo can walk down a red carpet mid-summer in a rabbit stole and stay dry and lovely looking, I say go for it. If ya got it, use it.

Luckily, those warm month dilemmas are behind us. Fur is in for fall, dahling, and its fabulous! (Spare us the nude supermodels on billboards protesting fur al la 1995). Fur handbags, fur scarves, fur ear muffs in all the colors of the rainbow ... bring 'em on.

In other news, Martha spends some time at the beach; SNL boats an all-female "Weekend Update team;"; A queen skewers a queen -- Elton John blasts Madonna; and finally, Britney Spears' move of the week.

Puh-sleze

In a CNN interview today, Desperate Housewives (Sundays, 9 p.m., ABC) creator Marc Cherry defended his new show, saying it isn't satire.

"Satire sounds like you're making fun of something. And the truth is I'm not making fun of the suburbs. ... It's just that stuff happens. I don't romanticize that life at all."

Cherry and ABC get a rotten tomato from Virginia Housewife and I'll tell you why: "Desperate Housewives" is demoralizing to women, playing on the stereotype that we're pent-up, irrational crazy people who would rather kill ourselves than look within and create a better, happier life.

It and the overexposure it's been getting is laughable -- a man making a show about desperate women. How very cutting-edge and oh how nicely it pairs with "Wife Swap."

"Look," Cherry seems to be saying to all his chauvinist buddies, "these women have everything they want and yet they still complain. Aren't women insane?"

If the show is about the "stuff that happens" in suburbs (yawn) -- a place that isn't home to just housewives -- then why isn't it called "Desperate People," which quite obviously ABC and Cherry are.

There's a simple answer, of course. "Desperate People" isn't sexy, it's sad (not to mention way too true), and it wouldn't stand a chance of turning around ABC's pitiful ratings decline. I'm sure that decline has everything to do with the network's previously non-catchy titles (could "8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter" have done better as "8 Slutty Teenage Girls"?) and nothing to do with it's sub par programming.

No, Marc Cherry. Your show isn't satire. It's junk.