Shabby Chic

February is the worst month of the year by far: February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don’t get and it is the host month for Valentine’s Day.

Try to avoid February’s whenever possible.

Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year when unhappily married women don’t envy their Happy Single Friends and their happily single friends are tempted to spend their “shoe money” on a dating service.

VD, a day when even penicillin won’t cure what’s ailing you.

Valentine’s Day is the day when Happy Singles envy something they don’t necessarily even want.

Chorus in the song Valentine’s Day Lament: “What’s wrong with me”.

Chorus in the song I Survived Valentine’s Day: “What was I thinking”.

Valentines Day is like the measles. We all have to go through it and hope we survive. If we don’t scratch the irritation, we’ll have fewer scars. So let’s duck tape mittens to our hands and not scratch.

After all, it may be one “mother” of a long day but it’s only one day.

Suggestions on how to get through it intact:

Avoid restaurants of any kind – let’s face it, this is not the night you want to utter the words : A table for one please”. Don’t do that to yourself.

If you have any single friends you can get together with, get drunk and beat the hell out of a heart-shaped piñata full of chocolates.

If you don’t have any single friends you can get together with, get drunk, pin a picture of your ex’s face on a cupid shaped piñata filled with chocolate and beat the hell out of it.

If you can’t think of anyone you would want to be with given the choice, broaden your horizons – give serious consideration to becoming gay. Then plan to write a book about it, naming all the names of the people that made your “changing teams” so easy.

Install caller ID on your phone and DO NOT talk to anyone who thinks you should be married or involved in a relationship with potential (your disappointed Mother can go for one day without talking to you).

To combat the inclination to go “postal” at work after you have seen the tenth vase of red roses on your co-workers desks, put on one of those sexy black satin sleeping masks. Suggestion: If you are on a budget you might want to consider renting a seeing-eye dog for the day instead of buying yourself roses .

While most celebrate romance on this day try celebrating your life and all the family and friends who love you “just the way you are” and pretend that matters (some alcoholic beverages may be required to pull this off).

Remember all the bad sex you have had.

Flowers don’t judge - buy some for yourself just as a reminder that you don’t need someone else to do it for you (15% of single women do this by the way).

3% of singles buy their pets Valentine’s Day gifts. BAD IDEA. Do you really want to loose the respect of your cat? I for one will not buy a Valentine’s Day gift for my Persian cats. I have not, however, ruled out buying myself flowers and having dinner with them.

If you are a Drama Queen – think of this day as a new episode in your personal soap opera.

If thinking about being dateless on Valentine’s Day hurts, stop doing it.

On February 15^th, to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for next February 14^th. talk to as many women as you can whose significant other or spouse did absolutely nothing for them on Valentine’s Day worth bragging about.

Remember there’s nothing wrong with any of us – it’s just not our day.

In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. “

The fact that the “commercial dating machine” is so damned good at it is unfortunate.

So be pro-choice, choose not to buy into the billion dollar hype.

Most importantly, hold onto your sense of self and your sense of humor.

Get through the day and before you know it your unhappily married friends will be back to envying you.

Till the next time,

Shabby Chic

First thing this morning I checked my blog to see if anything was going on –something I do often these days to satisfy my OCD tendencies.

Oh joy, oh joy there were some new comments!!!!!!

One of the comments came from Anonymous. This must be a very popular name these days as I hear from a lot of people sharing that same name. I find it to be an odd name choice for a parent to make, but who can argue with trends? Undeniably, it is easier to tolerate than the drug induced names of the 70’s like “Rainbow” or Angel Sky”.

This is what Anonymous had to say on an 8:19 am comment posting this morning.

“So, I checked in and there’s nothing new. Are you hung up in your lights? Tease those keys and post something fresh. Time’s awasting!”

This was my response:

“Good God Anonymous!! Your comment was posted at 8:19 am!!!

Glad to hear from you but GET A GRIP!

Wonderful crazy person, what time zone are you in?

8:19 Eastern time makes it 6:19 am Land of Enchantment time. Was I tangled up in my lights? Hell no darlin, my lights weren’t even on!

“Regarding me teasing the keys and writing something fresh: To tell you the truth I was hoping I could get away with out and out plagiarism, worn out words and stale opinions. No one ever said I had to be fresh or original. Now you are scaring me!!”

Not wanting to totally disappoint Anonymous, I decided to give my worn out muse a bit of a break and publish a little chicken fun sent to me by my sister.

I feel I can get away with this lazy posting as it relates back to when Lauren named my blog “Shabby Chick” – a clear and undeniable chicken reference.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

DR. PHILL
The problem we have here is that this chicken won’t realize that he must first deal with the problem on ‘THIS’ side of the road before it goes after the problem on the ‘OTHER SIDE’ of the road. What we need
to do is help him realize how stupid he’s acting by not taking on his
‘CURRENT’ problems before adding ‘NEW’ problems.

OPRAH
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why
he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken
learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I’m
going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the
road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH
We don’t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

ANDERSON COOPER- CNN:
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been
allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY (remember him?)
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against
it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken’s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE
That chicken crossed the road because he’s GUILTY! You can see it in
his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a
standing order at the Farmer’s Market to sell my eggs when the price
dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider
information.

JERRY FALWELL
Because the chicken was gay! Can’t you people see the plain truth?’
That’s why they call it the ‘other side.’ Yes, my friends, that
chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too.
I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that
the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like
‘the other side”. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It’s as
plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA
In my day we didn’t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody
told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

ALBERT EINSTEIN
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath
the chicken?

BILL CLINTON
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of
chicken?

AL GORE
I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS
Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY
Where’s my gun? Does it have a vest on?

AL SHARPTON
Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

Dat’s all folks,

Til next time.

Susan, Shabby Chic

Where women are free to be themselves, together.