Oh, get your head out the gutter.  When I say “Pants on the ground!”, I am speaking of Larry Platt’s little diddy, instructing all homies to pull their friggin’ pants up.  Some lyrics for your pleasure:

Pants on the ground
Pants on the ground
Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground

With the gold in your mouth
Hat turned sideways
Pants hit the ground
Call yourself a cool cat
Lookin’ like a fool
Walkin’ downtown with your pants on the ground

Get it up, hey!
Get your pants off the ground
Lookin’ like a fool
Walkin’ talkin’ with your pants on the ground.

Get it up, hey!
Get your pants off the ground
Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground

Now I promise you this.  Unless you’re tone deaf, the tune of this song will be stuck in your head so bad that not even a lobotomy could remove it.

Btw…Larry Platt is a ripe ole 62 years of age….which only adds to the allure.  I predict it’ll be the first big hit of 2010.  Let’s just hope American Idol doesn’t get hold of it and bubble-gum it to death.

Here’s Larry now with his bad self.

I grew up during the 80’s. Literally.  I was a teenager growing out all over the place.  I’m pretty sure I wore every single fad all at once.  Shoulder pads, jelly bracelets, jelly shoes (with heels!), big bangs frozen in time with Aqua Net, white framed shades, Lip Smackers lip gloss, Rubik’s cube in one hand and a Shasta cola in the other.

Now.  The following picture was taken when I was around 15 years of age…somewhere around 1986.  (Note the shades.)  What you can’t really see in the picture is the horse I’m on.  Nor can you see my entire family and a horse guide laughing their butts off up on the ridge above me.  I was in a gully because my ignorant horse got a burr up its hiney to run (full speed!) down a cliff so he could have himself a drink of water from an old rusted out bathtub.  I believe I screamed for my Daddy the whole way down.

Also..note the bangs.  We were “primitive” camping that year and I nearly passed out at the thought of being without my curling iron.  So.  I somehow got hold of some extension cords and drug them all the way back to Camp Angus, quite pleased with my ingenuity.  There’s a picture of me taken the morning of the horse incident…where I’m straddling a red igloo cooler, got my mirror stuck up in the bark of a tree and I’m curling those bangs, hunny.

So tonight my husband and all his little Facebook cronies were spouting off Napoleon Dynamite quotes and someone commented on Napoleon’s boots.  I mentioned that I had owned some boots and gloves that changed colors in the cold.  After about a five second pause, my husband started laughing like an idiot and then mocked me openly.  Naturally none of his elderly friends knew what I was talking about.  There’s an age gap between my husband and I.  Not a big one…but big enough to separate us when it comes to style and music.

The gloves I was referring to were called Freezy Freakies.  Only the cool kids had a pair.  Here’s a pic:

Old people, go have yourself a cup of tea by the fire….this ain’t for you.  For everyone else, let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Yeah, baby.  I’m bringing back the penny loafer.  Remember all the crap Katie Holmes got a couple of years ago about sporting pennies with baggy jeans?  Two words.  TREND SETTAH.

I say bling the things out.  Screw the pennies….put jewels in there and whatnot.  I’m not doing the whole baggy jean thing though….I’m thinking skinny jeans with pennies.  I got me a pair of Converse skinny jeans right after Christmas and I’m practically sleeping in them.  They’re becoming kinda like Amy Winehouse’s ballet shoes.  Ew.  I know, right?

Here’s a tribute to The Penny.  Try to open your mind.:

Our Christmas parade was Saturday night and apparently it was the coldest parade in its 19 year history.  Low 40’s….felt like 50 below.  The girls danced like stars and braved the cold like olympic champions.   Now I’m trying to haul hiney to get Cali’s Christmas dress done in time for her to sing on Friday.  Oh!  Did I mention the husband is having surgery in a couple of weeks?  No?  Well…..yoga breathing…..in your nose, out your mouth.

Another successful year of treat-begging is winding down.  We “partied” at the RiverQuarium last night and it’s a good thing!  Had to run Cali to the doc’s office first thing this morning.  Her cold had gotten outta hand and because there’s been such an outbreak of flu-nonsense around here, you had to make an office visit.  So.  Diagnosis:  Sinus infection, 10 day antibiotic, followed by, “NO PLAYING OUTSIDE!”  So we set a big bowl of candy out on the front porch and let the beggars have at it while we poured Dimetapp down the kids’ gullet. 

Naturally, the first order of business upon entering the Aquarium last night was signing up for the costume contest.  I didn’t burn the skin off two fingers with a commercial grade hot-glue gun for cheap thrills.  I did it for the acclaim.  After waiting about five minutes for the contest to get rolling, Cali put down a sequined slipper and informed us that Snow White had officially removed herself from the competition.  Threatened to rip the wig off and everything.

“I’M HERE TO SEE THE FISH!”

It was probably for the best.  While we’d been waiting I took note of two stunning fairy costumes, hand sewn…exquisite work.  And I let the Mama know it. 

“Phenomenal job!  Just gorgeous!  And the tulle!  That’s alot of tulle.  I   stopped working with tulle last year.”

But that Mama…she had a look in her eye.  Like she wanted to challenge me to a scissor-fight at the Fish Tank Coral.  I saw her eye-balling my work.  Critically.  So what if I use Fabri-Tac, you pretentious over-protective mother who needs to incorporate more fiber into her diet!  I didn’t say that out loud.  The meanie in me wanted to cock an eyebrow and remind her:

“I can clearly see your blind stitches from here.  Even with no glasses and an astigmatism.  You might shoulda touched up that toe-nail polish before you fuss-hustled yourself up in here too.  And what color is that anyway…what’s left of it?  Brown Frost?  Does Revlon still make that?  Ohhh….I think Wet ‘n Wild carries it now.  Hm.  Oh look.  Your little one there is knuckle deep up her nose and eating its contents.  She could get rickets, you know.  If you’d been learning to parent instead of sew, you would’ve known that.  There’s no need to call security!  They know me here….I have a membership.  See?  YELLOW bracelet.  You have blue.  Oh…and before I forget….while you were tulle-fluffing, your husband was totally macking on that chic over there running the bag-toss game.”

 Obviously I’ve matured because I laughed, adjusted Snow White’s wig and went to look at fish.  I don’t know who won….but THIS was my pick of the night.  Brilliant!

And here’s the rest of it.  Witches, haunted underwater dives, sea horses, getting shot in the face by Predator, ice-cream trucks and planetariums.  A good time was had by all.  We ended the night at Wendy’s, listening to a one-sided conversation about how child support was paid LAST week and it wasn’t getting paid again no matter if the baby was wandering around the yard with filth in his drawers. 

Cali has been learning all ’bout the letter H this week at school and today was *drumroll please*…HOT DOG AND HAT DAY!!  For about a month now, Cali and all her little cronies have been crawling around on the floor, convinced they’ve become cats.  They hiss, spit, meow, scratch, howl….the whole nine yards.  So I made this hat last night for the resident Kitty. 

She resembles an embellished Oliver Twist with a hammer.  I have also come to accept the fact that she will forever be inclined to screw around whenever a camera is within a mile of her. 

I personally think the now defunct Wunderlee Candy Company (of Philadelphia) needs to reimburse me for approximately 12 tooth cavities that have been filled and re-filled over the years from excessive consumption of their candy corn. They’re the ones who started the whole mess. What was THAT ‘Aha’ moment like? I mean, it was the 1880’s….people weren’t exactly forward-thinkers. The big kahuna boss man, George Renninger, came up with the brilliant idea. Here’s my theory. I think George had diverticulitis. Anyone who knows anything about something knows that corn is the arch enemy of the diverticula. So he figured he’d change a couple of ingredients and develop a corn more suited to the afflicted colon. Of course, he’s probably responsible for 1/3 of our nation’s diabetic population, but who cares! You can’t stay mad at the Candy Man!

I’ve been having a love-affair with candy since conception. My Mother, however, found sugar to be a carnal sin and forbade it as such. You know how your parents have those “I was so poor….” stories? Well, I have one too. Only I’m not poor. I’m deprived. “I was so deprived that instead of ice-cream with Hershey’s syrup, I had to eat ice-milk with wheat germ.”  Oh, you think I’m playing?  Surely I do not jest.  But there’s one particularly cruel moment that stands out. 

I don’t remember the year….I may have been 9 or 10 years old.  We lived on a road that ended in a cul de sac. There was one rule that had been agreed upon by all the parents:  DO NOT GO PAST THE STOP-SIGN!  As far as we knew, life didn’t exist past the stop sign.  But I knew there was manna from heaven over there.  I’d stand, one hand on the stop sign pole, one toe just past the line of demarcation, luxuriating in my rebellion.  So every Halloween, we’d be emphatically reminded to stay within the boundaries of the Deprived Kid Compound.  To deliberately break this rule would result in a punishment so heinous, it didn’t need details.  We knew, though.  They didn’t have to spell it out.  We knew disobedience would result in death. 

But that year, I felt brave.  Strong, even!  I’d won the spelling bee a month earlier and things were looking promising in the science department.  I figured I deserved a higher level of freedom.  While all those involved would beg to differ, my crime was not premeditated.  I can’t remember my costume…but I do remember that I carried a pillow-case for a candy sack.  So I must have subconsciously known what was about to commence.   I followed the herd of kids around to each other’s house, making snide remarks about those who only passed out Sweet Tarts. 

“Why don’t you just give us a wad of paper towels?  Or smack us in the face!  Sweet Tarts are monetary proof  that you could care less about children.” 

So we’d all made the loop and ended up in front of my house, which happened to be snuggled up to the church that my Dad pastored, commonly referred to as “The Parsonage”.  We’d all sit on the church steps, eye-balling each other’s candy, wishing there was more…KNOWING there was more on the other side of The Sign.  I’d like to think I was viewed as heroic that year.  I stood, tossing my sack over my shoulder like Santa’s delinquent sister.  I made my way towards The Sign, knowing in the deepest part of my rear-end that once I was past….there was no going back.  As I crossed the threshold into the Land of Untapped Candy, I heard my angelic brother call out:

“You’re gonna get in TROUBLE!!!  She is so much in trouble bad she doesn’t even know it.” 

I don’t remember much after that.  I do remember it was dusky when I embarked and pitch black when I returned.  And in that amount of time, I had canvased the entire town of Groveport.  My pillowcase was engorged.  My feet were blistered.  I crammed candy down my gullet like a Nathan’s Hot Dog contender, knowing that when I returned home, there’d be no fatted calf awaiting me…only confiscation and death. 

Obviously, the threat of death was nothing but a smoke-screen to hide their true cruel intent.  I was tongue lashed black and blue while my brother stood by with a strange mix of horror, fascination and glee written all over his cherubic face.  Then, like a henchman letting go of the rope that held up the guillotine blade, my Mother snatched my sack, still foaming at the mouth.

“You’ll never see this sack again!  You hear me?  NEVER AGAIN!”

I searched for that sack and its contents for the next 13 years.  I never went trick-or-treating again.  What was the point?  I’d seen all there was to see.   Enough to know that when I grew up…I was going to let my kids eat as much candy as they wanted…WITHOUT the mind-games. 

Last weekend, my daughter pointed and asked, “Mommy, what is THAT?”

“Produce, sweetie.  Oranges, apples, bananas….it’s produce.  Give me that Ring Pop.  Show’s over, baby.”

So in honor of my sad and somewhat strong parental stance on the evils of sugar, here’s a tribute to Candy.  My one true love.