Game night and Cheerleaders

The other night myself and a few of my closest friends got together to cook dinner and have a game night (we're one trip to Michael's away from menopause and shopping at Chico's, apparently). Our usual favorite of Taboo was getting a bit tired so we headed out to Fred Meyer's to pick up some fresh gamin meat (it's possible that this story has already peaked, so feel free to stop reading at any time).

Roundin the gamin aisle, I was really pulling for Settlers of Catan. Sidenote: Catan is an amazing game and not meant for those who are easily repelled by nerdy behavior and language, otherwise, I wholeheartedly recommend it. However, Settlers of Catan is far too classy a game to be sold at Fred Meyer's, kinda like how Cranium used to only be sold exclusively at Starbucks, but not in an uppity way. So, after centuries of debating and arguing over games, we decided on IMAGINIFF!!!!!!!!!!!!! If it was not clear by the excessive use of exclamation points, Imaginiff did not disappoint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so wonderful that I had a dream about it that night, sexy.

You basically choose 8 people (including yourselves) and answer multiple choice questions about how they would react in particular scenarios, things they would choose, things they would be, etc. The rules state that you can also pick celebrities, but that's crap. Just stick to yourselves and people you know so you can make fun of them and laugh at them. Choosing peoples parents work nice, also. It is a board style game and you have pieces to try to move to the end, with challenges and whatnot, but all of that almost gets lost in the midst of accessing whether or not someone would confess to running over a cat, replace the cat, bury the cat do nothing, or blame the cat's owner for letting it outside (BTW, Liz George would blame the cat's owner).

Okay, so there's my endorsement for Imaginiff, tada.


Moving on to another thing I feel very passionately about. I really, really love the show Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: Making the Team on CMT. This may be the first show ever I have watched on CMT. Now, I like country music. Reba McIntyre may even be at my fantasy dinner, but I think CMT is pretty lame. This show, however, is pure joy. If I haven't already alienated every feminist and female liberationalist (?), I'm sure I will shortly.

This show chronicles the audition process of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and gives you (the viewer!!!) an inside look as to why or why not someone may make the team. Are their kicks a bit sub par? Not flexible enough? Hair color too blah? Would they look "inappropriate" in the uniform (such tact!)? The ringleader of the whole shebang is Kelli Finglass, the DCC director. Kelli ("Ma'am") is an immaculately composed and shellacked mother/big sister figure who has perfected a veil of compassion and empathy for these girls who are, mostly likely, "going home with a broken heart and crushed dreams". They even tug at your heartstrings a bit with Christina, a profoundly deaf girl who does a lyrical dance to Coldplay "Clocks", causing the dance instructor to cry and embrace her.

Not hooked yet? In the most recent episode the girls, who are now past auditions and into training camp (complete with a Jerry Springer-esque boot camp instructor!!! OMG), get their body fat percentage measured. One girl was found to be a whopping 16% body fat. This was 3% over the team average and, therefore, she was put on a meal plan and told to tighten up. Now, to the naked eye, she was incredible thin and had a killer bod (lez!), but as she was walking away, the camera happened to catch the slightest hint of back fat. Is this a bit harsh? Does it set women back 50 years? Yes, and yes. However, these women knew that 2 out of the 3 categories they would be judged on were based on appearance (face and body, duh). Kelli Finglass and the uniform can not be compromised by misplaced and unsightly faaat! So, as a judging viewer and a devoted fan of pom-poms (again, lez!), I say lose the excess adipose or find a new dream, girlfriend.

C. Booones

Apparently, when former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani "cleaned up" the city, he forgot one major infringement to this city's beautification: chi-cken bones. Chicken Bones. Me being bipedal on the NYC sidewalks means only one thing – chicken bones will plague me.

They are disgusting, unnatural, and certainly unnecessary as there is a trashcan on just about every corner. Just when I think I am safe from these C. Bones, one (or several) will appear, as if they just fell from the heavens. If you build it, they will come. Well, the same is true for chicken bones.

Half eaten chicken bones, legs, thighs, foil encased bones, skinny bones, fat bones. They are everywhere. Staring back at you from their hideouts: cuddled up to buildings, in the gutters, wedged next to scaffolding poles, NEXT to trashcans, doing back flips from street lights, and highfiving each other as they pass on the street – chicken bones are here to stay.

As the temperature rises, so does my infuriation with C.B. The thought of an iced over C.B. is far less blood boiling than seeing a C.B. through the hazy mist of a NY summer day. The sight of a humid, sticky chicken bone (skin flapping, dripping with bone grease) is enough to send me into an increased blood pressure blind rage.

Now, here is a question that shakes me from my slumber: Where are these chicken bones coming from?? Certainly, I see these bones being ingested (another issue altogether), but where are they acquired? I imagine it must be a place where there is no sit-down eatery available. Where the purchaser can simply obtain and flee. Street vendors do no vending of the bones, as far as I know. Are they black market? Is there an outdoor BBQ somewhere that I am unaware of? The place of C.B. origination must be nearby because I can't imagine (or, for the sake of my health, choose not to) that the chicken bones are traveled with for blocks and blocks before they are consumed and, consequently, disposed of in plain view.

Where is the birthplace of the chicken bone, and why do they insist that the sidewalk be their final resting place???