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.:

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.