Excuse me, Stewardess -- I speak Jive.

So hey, how was y'all's Thanksgiving? Mine was pretty awesome -- there was the thing where I bought a turkey the week before and left it in the fridge to thaw but then it leaked turkey blood all over the bottom shelf and the vegetable drawer and the coils of the water dispenser and Mr. Gleemonex had to spend like three hours disinfecting the entire goddamn kitchen and THEN we discover on Wednesday evening that you can't just leave a turkey in the fridge for ten days because if you eat it YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WILL ALL DIE, so on Thursday morning I got up at the crack of ass and called Whole Foods and on the edge of panic asked if they had any currently non-frozen turkeys and they were like "Sure, lots, come on over!" and now I love them till the stars turn cold, but other than that it was cool. The baby even slept through the whole meal!

Oh yeah! We got us a baby. A sweeeeet little snurfly baby, who got here via the easiest and fastest labor I could possibly imagine (started at 7:00 a.m. on Friday 11/18, had baby by 1:55 p.m. the same day! whaaaaat!).

And he is such a little smooshy precious guy ... the brother that Kid Gleemonex was convinced she was getting all along. It is awesome, he is beyond adorable, life is so good y'all.

More later ... DK be comin' back now that I'm on leave and getting into a rhythm with this two-kid thing.

I ... can't.

Anyone who didn't see THIS coming is full-on submental.

Much like the Duggars themselves, I say.

Go on, bow to 'er -- the queen of filth! The queen of slime!

Y'all.

Y'ALL.

Newsflash: Chili's is AWFUL.

Maybe you already knew that, but maybe, like me, you hadn't eaten there in like fifteen or so years and still had semi-fond memories of it being a pretty OK place when you went there with your friends or on a date back in high school or with your boyfriend for a $4 happy hour pitcher of beer and some free chips & salsa during grad school.

I had to go to Target one last time yesterday for some baby-related odds and ends, and after shuffling around in there, leaning on the cart for actual support, feeling like an obese 103-year-old for way longer than this type of errand normally takes, it was 2:00 and I was fucking starving. I didn't feel capable of making my own lunch, so when I spotted the Chili's directly in the path between me and home (o, the suburbs ... my heart weeps), I stopped in. I thought, I'll get some sort of poppin'-fresh appetizer something-or-other, or like a quesadilla, and that'll do it. How bad could it be?

It was so. bad.

I ordered a combo appetizer plate as my lunch -- the Southwestern egg rolls, the hot spinach & artichoke chips 'n dip, and something called "chicken crispers." The "egg rolls," while not anything that any reasonable person would recognize as egg rolls, were OK -- basically pastry dough wrapped around black beans and cheese and some kind of corn-based salsa. But the alleged spinach/artichoke dip was yucko blucko -- I can't imagine what was actually in there -- and the chicken strips were fucking horrifying. The chicken, though cooked white all the way through, was ... soft. Squishy. Like -- was this even chicken? Or was it Chickie Nobs? The fact that I ate two bites of the Nobs, not just one, should tell you how desperately hungry I was. Eeeeegh.

You could not possibly do worse with this shit -- it was clearly all manufactured in a Chinese nail-polish factory using whatever is left over after they finish making McNuggets, Payless shoes and feline leukemia meds, then partially frozen, shipped over here, warmed in an Easy-Bake Oven, and sold to me for $10.79.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is one of the keys to what ails Republicans -- if THIS is what you think food is; if THIS is what "going out" means to you -- then it's no wonder that your inner life is arid, mean and bankrupt from the very most basic level.

If I'm going to keep living here -- and chain restaurants aside, I do love so much about it -- I might have to quit my job as a professional verbal tap dancer and open a few real restaurants in which actual food is sold to people with functioning taste buds. I'm hereby soliciting spare change, donations, investors and backers of all kinds ...

Mustn't keep Princess waiting!

So, yesterday I got a pedicure, my first ever.

I am officially on maternity leave now, I was mostly done with the high-priority to-do list items like setting up for the baby, and cooking and freezing a boatload of meals for us. I like it when I have cute painted toenails but I can't reach my feet to do it myself at this point. Also, it just seemed like the thing to do. There are people who do this, like, weekly, and most adult women in the First World have had their first pedicure by this point in their lives, so! Off to the mini-mall.*

This place is new and clean and doesn't reek of birth-defecty chemicals. I'm reassured by their attention to single-use items and hygiene in general. The lady who takes care of me is a very sweet, very professional Asian woman named Yvonne. We talk briefly, I choose the deluxe service package that includes calf & foot massage (my dogs are tired, y'all), and pick out a nice pink enamel for my color. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes, during which I cannot shake the One-Percent, Privileged Rich White Suburban Lady A-Hole feeling that has kept me from doing this before age 37-and-three-quarters. It's WEIRD.

I have a sort of half conversation with the One-Percent, Privileged Rich White Suburban Lady next to me as we watch Family Feud (Christ that show is awful) on the flat-screen TV next to us, I read a bunch of stuff on my iPhone, I do whatever Yvonne is telling me to do, and I field the numerous questions from staff and guests about my scary-big midsection -- you can tell it makes the staff a little nervous that I'm so close to my due date. The massage was marvelous, my feet look great (they scrub off the calluses! whaaat!), I gave Yvonne a huge tip for her gentle treatment of the Pedicure Noob (and also because of Privilege Guilt -- just like the times I've gotten a shoeshine -- it's a strange feeling for a person of my low-rent background to be sitting literally higher than a service person, getting worked on, for what you know is low pay and less respect ... ugh).

Anyway. My point is: I liked the results, I am glad I tried it, but I feel oddly uncomfortable about the whole experience and it is extremely unlikely to become a habitual thing for me. I am not the Idle Rich -- I'm as 99 percent as they come -- and it's hard to imagine ever getting used to this kind of treatment on the reg.

And in conclusion: WOW, do I have to scrape to find a problem. This has been your Privileged A-Hole Report for today.

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*I could make a whole post out of this, but we have noticed that the outdoor strip mall is the dominant form of commerce in the place where we live now. Each one is apparently required by local ordinance to contain the following: a taqueria, a martial-arts center, a nail salon, a tutoring place (e.g. Kumon), a fro-yo joint, and either a dry-cleaner's, a chain coffee shop, or a dental office, plus one wild card slot, which can take any form from Armed Forces recruiting center to pottery studio.