Le monde de fromage de Kate

With invaluable assistance of The Guru (okay, “assistance” is somewhat misleading – I looked at some WordPress themes and when he proposed the current one I said, “OOOH – I love the swirls!”) the Tiny Pineapple Dynasty has new and super-cool tools and a better location. These tools are rather above my head for the moment, but – hey – give me some time.

For now, all bow down to The Guru, ESPECIALLY in undying gratitude for the revolving Cheese Wisdom (how impressive is THAT).

Oh – for the time being, I haven’t any idea how to send notifications (please don’t weep my many eager readers – ha, ha?) though I should still land in peoples’ feeds. I wish, personally, I liked feeds more (as they are undeniably handy), but I cannot get over the feeling that they are a little like Reader’s Digest Abridged Books and that I am missing something.

I’ve always been a dedicated fan of and sometimes contributor to the Tiny Pineapple Nurse Book Collection: Career Romances for Young Moderns. But tonight – what to my wondering eyes should appear, but THIS:

It’s Christmas Morning all over again.

It is midnight again. One thing at a time, right?

It’s CUTE, damn it.

Once I have my data loaded back onto my spankin’ new hard drive, the changes begin:

• Mammogram update (no cancer – just a festive description of the experience).
• LITTLE WALLOP!!! I’ve been waiting for the right time to introduce this one forever.
• A belated update on the 2007 Gloucester Cheese Rolling Competition.
• Introducing two local LIVESTRONG Armies…
• Buh-bye, pink; welcome back “Midnight.”

I’m excited. YOU SHOULD BE, TOO.

Tomorrow, at the ungodly bright, early hour of 8:00 a.m. I am getting my very first mammogram. Breast Cancer Awareness month is almost over, and I thought this was an appropriate finale to this time frame. Also tomorrow, in furtherance of Breast Cancer AWARENESS, I thought I might make everyone AWARE that they’ve been extraordinarily remiss – nay – NEGLECTFUL of the worthy goals of Team Tiny Pineapple.

The idea was to raise a mere $250 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The suggested donation was only $5. FIVE DOLLARS! Let me put that into even more clear perspective; I found five dollars – if I can find five dollars, anyone can pull together five dollars. Seriously, ANYONE.

Incidentally, I did not know that you could not wear lotion or deodorant/antiperspirant to a mammogram. Did you know that? This is what my Mother tells me anyway, and she has experience in the area. She claims they will actually reschedule your appointment if you don either beforehand.

It did occur to me that perhaps she thought it might be really hilarious to see what happens if I go in and say to the Radiology Technologist, “I’m not wearing any deodorant; let’s get started!” If the tech backs off I will know this was her devious plan.

I thought all the love was gone…

No comments whatsoever concerning my new midnight blueness and pirates (argh!) and my titillating and ongoing fruit fly battle. Isn’t that sad?

So I decided to leave myself a comment, under the pretense of “testing” the function of the apparatus. Really, I was just being like a busker who puts the money in their own guitar case so that other people will throw money in there, too. Pitiful.

But what did I discover? The comment function ISN’T working. HUZZAH!

Oh. I mean I’m very sorry. I’ll see if I can figure it out or, better yet, if I can beg the assistance of The Mighty Guru (of PANTS), who did, after all, put my “infinite” sidebar back (his choice of words, though I suppose I cannot completely disagree).

Thank you, and Good Night.

Here’s a little incentive to stay married for what Smash aptly described as “a crazy amount of time”: Next year my parents (43rd Anniversary) should gift each other travel.

But that’s not the incentive of which I speak. This is the gift that REALLY impressed me: For year forty-four the recommended present is GROCERIES. Yes, GROCERIES.

Everything between the forty-fifth and the hundredth wedding anniversary is a jewel of some variety. Not groceries (super-cool GROCERIES), but I suppose it’s seemly enough.

And if you make it to your 100th wedding anniversary (??????) you get a ten-carat diamond. This renders me (almost) speechless (typeless?).

Let’s put aside all the other seemingly impossible aspects of making it to one’s ONE HUNDREDTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY and think only about the logistical aspects of receiving or giving a TEN-KARAT DIAMOND when one is OVER one hundred years of age (other than affording said gem when one has outlived one’s fixed income several times over). A TEN-KARAT DIAMOND is larger than most individuals well over one hundred years of age. Wearing it would be out of the question (brittle bones + ginormous jewel = lil’ old person turned into a pile of dusty shards).

I apologize for these possibly repellent images, but I think I’ve uncovered a real problem here. This gift suggestion is cruel; this is elder abuse.

I am considering starting a petition with which we solicit a change by which the “proper” present for one’s 100th Wedding Anniversary is a balloon. Just ONE, not mylar. A balloon “bouquet” might carry a frail, unbelievably aged person right up into the atmosphere on an unintended journey into space.

Your support would be appreciated.

Who am I kidding? What, precisely, is there that I need to mull over?

Just take a LOOK at her me:

I may very well have subconsciously purloined at least part of the following analogy, but I don’t care. She appears I appear so luminous it’s as if she’s I’ve been swept by the faint iridescent magical dust of a thousand tiny faeries – each of them having left perfumed kisses containing a mélange of beguiling fragrance – every gentle caress redolent of the forest after rain and the subtle bouquet of fruit and blossoms.

In one fell swoop of whatever transmogrification or Freaky Friday magic is necessary, I would most GLADLY hand over to Ms. Biel the following:

• Twelve years
• The 1/2 inch height difference (I’d be shorter for THIS)
• However many additional pounds I carry – a special gift JUST for her
• My arthritis, asthma and all other festive health “issues” I will not itemize just now (they can be a SURPRISE)
• My whole wretched life wrapped up in a BEAUTIFUL bow (I can make a very nice bow)

I’ll take her film career (I now realize that her very first film was that delightful little independent flick, Ulee’s Gold – HER FIRST FILM). I’ll take those offers for leads on Broadway. I’ll take the money and what are no doubt very nice digs. And I’ll CERTAINLY take this description:

Jessica Biel, with her striking good looks and wide range of talent, has become one of Hollywood’s most sought-out actresses. Her television series acting debut on the WB’s #1-rated show, “7th Heaven” (1996), has helped her emerge as a breakout star.

As a child Jessica initially pursued a career as a vocalist, performing in musical theater. Beginning at age nine, she starred in such productions as “Annie,” “The Sound of Music,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” A natural beauty, Jessica soon turned to modeling and commercial work by competing in The International Modeling and Talent Association’s Annual Conference in 1994.

After completing a year and a half of college at Tufts University in Boston, Jessica plans on going back to school in California for the remainder of her college years. In her spare time, she is involved with charities such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and PETA. Her hobbies include ballet, soccer, running, yoga and hiking with her dog “East.” Jessica currently resides in Los Angeles.

I never watched Seventh Heaven and Annie makes me cringe a bit, but as a package, it’s still a sweet, sweet deal.

She I can even carry off THIS:

As some of you may remember, my last two costumes (not counting the pink towel with questionable coverage) were “Crazy Cat Lady” and “Antarctica” (yes, the CONTINENT).

Grettir, since you’re the one who made this shocking revelation, I think you should be the one to make this metamorphosis complete. Jessica I would be most appreciative. And, if I read the “rags,” I’m sure I will find that I have already “moved on.”

Yes, indeed, I am Jessica Biel.

Hold the phone, stop the presses – use any applicable metaphor that reflects suitable shock and awe at the prospect of this scenario: I AM JESSICA BIEL! I (along with the rest of the World’s sizable population) might deem this statement as laughable, absurd and utterly ludicrous. But, it was Grettir, the GURU who made the startling revelation. Consider the following:

For those of you who are new here, “Kate” is a really Jessica Biel, who can’t quite accept the fact that it’s over between us!

Move on, “Kate.” Move on…

All of this is confusing in many regards, I admit. First, I don’t know why Grettir prefaced this revelation with the phrase, “For those of you who are new here…” as everyone who has bothered to read TinyPineapple.com at all well knows, I have plagued almost every entry ever written on the site with my voluble and somewhat nonsensical comments, and this is the FIRST mention of “Kate” as “Jessica Biel.” It occurred to me that perhaps, JUST PERHAPS, this declaration of my “true” identity could be an ever-so-overly-deferential way of saying, “SHUT UP ALREADY, KATE.”

Jessica Biel ME

Then there’s the seeming incongruity of Grettir’s claim that he hasn’t been on a date in five thousand or so years and the assertion that “…it’s over between us.” This would imply that there WAS something between Grettir and I Jessica Biel. Considering that she is I am TWENTY-FIVE-YEARS OLD, in the interest of any VAGUE sense of propriety this would have to be a recent affaire de coeur. This discordance is especially upsetting in that I have Jessica Biel (?) has always considered Grettir to be a gentleman and a scholar who therefore should consider veracity preeminent.

Foremost, the – oh – minor detail that I have no memory whatsoever of my life as Jessica Biel myself is discomfiting, to say the least. And the fact that I have been witnessed on more than one occasion confusing Jessica Biel myself with Jennifer Beals of Flashdance fame is, to say the least, odd.

I, Jessica?, most certainly need to ponder this further.

My family has been globe-hopping (state-hopping at the very least) like stir crazy rabbits. While I was in D.C. and Maryland and briefly in Virginia my Father jetted off to London. By the time we went to call him on Father’s Day he was in Houston.

In the meantime, Ashley and Paisley went to Utah so they could go to California with Ashley’s friend. And THEN, after delaying my departure date to June 20th, I tried to go home.

I missed my flight on the 20th. I’m not ready to discuss that yet.

I booked a flight for the next day, I was already packed, and Julianne and I even managed an extra trip to Trader Joes! Triple Huzzah for THAT!!! Because I’d switched airlines I could pack a box with my spoils (QUINOA, et al) and check it. Julianne dropped me off at the airport with at least two hours to spare. The sky cap agent actually let one of my over-weight suitcases slide through without the penalty charge (he got an extra tip despite the fact that he seemed to think that I was his “Sweetheart”).

I passed through security without a hitch. This is when I tempted fate. I went shopping. I bought some festive amusing crabs (stuffed toys, of course). Then I went to The Body Shop. They were having a sale – a BIG sale. The purchase of several items, including a container of body butter and a bottle of shower wash (with PINEAPPLE in it), sent the World into some sort of Karmic tailspin.

First, my flight was delayed. It was also overbooked. I volunteered to take the incentive and give up my seat, but they wouldn’t take me because they couldn’t accommodate my connecting flight (hah). So we were delayed a little more while, “In just a few minutes we’ll have a flight crew [taken straight off a red-eye from Bora Bora?] from their other flight.” Blah blah. Finally, we planed (well, you DE-plane, yes?).

That’s when the pouring rain started (I tell you – BROUGHT ON BY RECKLESS SHOPPING). The pilot announced a weather delay. It was a lovely change of scene from the gate to sitting on the tarmac. I got on the phone with the airline right then and found out what would happen if I and several of my fellow passengers missed our connecting flight (as we had a twenty minute window or something to that effect). I was told that if they did not “hold the flight for us” we would be put up for the night, as there were no alternative flights.

When we landed in St. Louis, I kid you not, there wasn’t a gate available for the plane. I called to see if the connecting flight had, indeed, taken off. It was an hour gone. So I got on the phone with an agent again, and as I “deplaned” I started to arrange my alternate flight and put on my “you WILL [nicely] give me equitable treatment” demeanor.

As I walked through the airport she told me that evidently they were already trying to route me to Phoenix. I asked if there were connecting flights to Salt Lake City there. Nope. Bonus sightseeing? Anyhoooo, by the time I reached the desk agent, I knew that they were to issue me an “interrupted trip” voucher of some sort and that they should find my luggage (ugh – hadn’t REALLY wanted to see if again until Salt Lake) and I was to ask for a manager to get a hotel room voucher, etc. Someone attempted ONCE to say that they do not comp rooms for a weather delay and I had my index finger in the air in my forceful “talk to the [nice] finger” stance and explained that it was NOT just a weather delay and that I’d volunteered to get off the flight and before I got into the rest of the gory details that’s when they started to fetch things for me. So and so was going to fetch my luggage so it didn’t go to Phoenix or Bora Bora and someone else was running up to the something to get the signature for the voucher and was bringing it to me, etc. The agent next to mine started to look very concerned. Evidently, she’d just sent someone away from the same flight with NOTHING. So they paged him and somehow found a few others from our flight.

They handed my new partner-in-crime and I hotel vouchers and meal vouchers and explained where our luggage would be and that we were to call on the “red phone” (ooooh!) to get a shuttle. Now THAT’S what I’m talking about. I’ve never been to St. Louis. I got a scenic tour of the airport and the Double Tree Inn (not bad).

My new friend, Herr Schauble (don’t bring up the painful umlaut excision that his family suffered some years ago), was extremely gallant and helpful with my ridiculous amount of luggage (helping me protect my precious Quinoa). Turns out he’ll work for beer. I thought it was a good deal.

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