Not a dry eye in the house

My Clear eyes. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010Okay ... here's the thing.

Of all the maladies from which I do not suffer, Chronic Dry Eye is one.

I make quite enough of my own tears, thank you.

But I want to all-out sob ... and/or run out of the room ... when this commercial for Restasis comes on the TV.

At first I was merely agog (that's, like, all big-eyed) at the smarminess of this ad. Upon closer scrutiny, I became genuinely creeped out.

Now I watch the ad closely ... but only out of morbid fascination, while remaining fiercely loyal to Clear eyes Maximum Redness Relief.

Not, I imagine, what the drug company was going for when putting together an ad for their fancy eye drops.

First there's Dr. Alison Tendler ... a South Dakota cataract surgeon who was compensated for her contribution to the ad.

Duh.

Dr. Tendler is eerily cute and young looking, with eyes so huge one wonders if they were not widened by the miracle of computer generation.

I don't see any toothpicks, so that must be it.

This person comes across like a backward zombie.

Then the way they arranged her hair, all girl-Doogie-Howserish, all look-Mom-no-tanglesish, is so obvious. Her look screams: "You have nothing to fear from my needles and scalpels and lasers because I'm actually twelve and I can't even spell ophthalmologist."

Then there's the spooky way she talks. Has she been drinking Restasis? Or perhaps a vodka gimlet? Did she perchance ingest a hyperdose of Cata Tonic? She sounds as though she's about to slide out of the screen into a relaxed heap on the floor.

But when she does, her eyes will still be open. Wide, wide open like Teddy Roosevelt's nostrils on that other famously expressionless South Dakotan landmark.

Then there's her "patient" ... who I suspect was also handsomely compensated.

Duh.

Vaguely and unsettlingly androgynous, this person comes across like a backward zombie when she slowly utters the classic line "Prescription ... what do I have?"

(Uhm ... you have DRY EYES, Toots.)

And when Dr. Tendler reveals -- quite suddenly and without warning -- that she too uses Restasis, this woman's hypnotic incredulity is so fake, one wonders if she's, like, really the producer's ambitious girlfriend.

"You use Restasis?" she inquires pseudo-amazedly, as though she's just discovered that Dr. Tendler keeps spare eyeballs in her lab coat pocket.

For snacking.

What ... did she expect Dr. Tendler would cop to a fondness for Visine cocktails with a Murine chaser, while the cameras were rolling?

You should hear what I have to say about many other prescription drug ads on TV. I'll bet I could entertain you for at least as long as it took Dr. Tendler and her "patient" to learn their scintillating lines between mugfuls of mulled Restasis.

I see your I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo and raise you Chattanooga Choo Choo

Glenn Miller.I'm pretty sure I was born at least 25 years too late.

My blogging buddy, JT (a/k/a OldController) a stand-up conservative American woman and smart, witty scribe who opines on subjects of local, national, and indeed global importance from her lofty perch down the road from me in Sumter, South Carolina, yesterday posted a YouTube of the remarkable Glenn Miller number I've Got A Gal In Kalamazoo.  

Featuring an over-the-top dance routine by The Nicholas Brothers, this part of the movie Orchestra Wives (1942) is seven-plus minutes of sheer cinematic bliss.

Oh how I wish they still made films like this. Until they do, I'll just keep Turner Classic Movies as my power-on channel.

Unless you count my stunning personality.

So this post is my "answer" to JT's post ... the number her post made me think of: Chattanooga Choo Choo performed by Glenn Miller (class, class, pure class ... and a bona fide American Hero to boot) and his orchestra and Tex Beneke with The Modernaires (who are still performing, by the way ... with newer, younger voices, I imagine) in the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade. 

How about Milton Berle over there clowning around for a bored Sonja Henie Lynn Bari*? Hilarious.

This clip includes the adorable Dorothy Dandridge and -- yet again! -- the energetic duo of Fayard and Harold Nicholas, tapping to beat the band. Good heavens. I hope they had twin chiropractor brothers on retainer.

Reminds me of when, as a kid, I affixed bottle caps to my shoes (the bottoms) solely (heh heh) for the clickety effect.

And yes ... I performed (on the sidewalk, for no audience except a few bored mosquitoes) with a parasol as my only prop. Unless you count my stunning personality.

As a prop, that is.

Which I'm sure you don't.

Just watch the clip! I'm nowhere to be seen, having been born too late.

Kalamazoo via JT today ... Zuzu via yours truly tomorrow. Or the next day. Either way, you don't want to miss it.

Update on Friday, February 19, 2010 at 03:50PM by Jennifer

*I stand happily and gratefully corrected by astute IHATH reader John Cooper. The actress silently rebuffing Milton Berle in the clip is the glamorous Lynn Bari ... not, as I stated, the perky Miss Henie, who was apparently keeping John Payne busy on the slopes during this excellent musical number! Hat tip and deep curtsy, John!

Cold turkey

Gobble Gobble. Photo courtesy ButterballWind advisories have been in effect all day today in the Midlands of South Carolina … and with temps in the low 40s, wind chills plummeted to the 30s. 

Although our forecast has included none of the snow plaguing the Mid-Atlantic of late, still, for us this has been a cold couple of days. 

And so tonight as I was driving home from mid-week service at church, imagine my surprise and delight when a white flaky material began swirling around my car.

"SNOW?!?" I exclaimed to myself, peering up at the sky. I consulted my car's digital console, which said it was 38 degrees outside … hardly cold enough for snow, in my experience.

Hmmmmm.

And then I saw it … looming ahead, moving at a much slower speed than I, just trundling along. 

On the plate beside the mashed potatoes.

A great big semi-tractor-trailer load of turkeys.

Hurtling through the cold, windy night, not a Snuggie or a hot toddy to share amongst their considerable number, the turkeys were stuffed at least three abreast (pun intended) in a couple of hundred open wire cages stacked high on the flatbed.

PeTA wouldn't have liked it at all.

And their feathers were being ripped from their poor shivering bodies at such a clip that, behind the truck where I was driving, it appeared for all the world to be snowing.

I exited the Interstate and the turkeys moved on, westbound through the bitter night, being borne no doubt to some processing facility or other.

They'll get even colder before it's over, but the succulent turkey bodies will be warm soon enough. And mighty tasty … as Sarah Palin says, right where they belong: on the plate beside the mashed potatoes.

If you think about it, they don't really need those snowy feathers anymore.

I do believe we'll have turkey for lunch this Sunday … instead of hot dogs.

Mmmmmm!

Super Bowl Picketchard

Picketchard ... Original Recipe. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010Picketchard.

It's not a fence.

It's not a protest.

It's not a lottery game.

No ... no, and it's not a new football player ... or a new play.

Before we go any further, let me state unequivocally, and not for the first (or last) time: I don't do football.

The thought of attending a tailgate party excites me about as much as the prospect of watching "Turbo" Tim Geithner, clad only in Jockey shorts and a wifebeater, cheat on figure out his income tax refund using cut-rate software with Windows 95 on a laptop roughly the size of Janet Napolitano's hin lap.

The idea of listening to the pre-game show, wherein zillionaire former NFL stars wearing $4,000 suits and $800 ties sit around a desk harping on the minutest details of every team, every coach, every player, every play, every contract, every statistic, fills me with the same sense of wonder that envelops me when I pluck mini lint-blankets from the mysterious hole-y landscape that is my clothes dryer's screeny trap.

Her eyes widen. She staggers a little.

The thought of sitting through the actual Super Bowl game interests me about as much as watching a horde of geriatric snails demonstrate their snappy ambulatory technique.

The idea of being forced to witness the halftime show inspires the same kind of dread I experience when contemplating a trip to Wal-Mart at peak traffic time the Saturday before Christmas or Easter.

Like, not at all, y'all.

And again I say: I don't do football.

But I have nothing against fun food, the type of which folks often enjoy on happy, sit-around-with-friends kinds of days like Super Bowl Sunday.

A little buddy of mine at church often teases me about my love of hot dogs. "What are you having for lunch today?" she asks me nearly every Sunday morning as we head for our cars, and home, and lunch.

"Why, hot dogs, of course, Gail," I say with a straight face, even if we're actually having brunch at Harper's or bacon and eggs at Cracker Barrel or barbecued chicken with mashed potatoes, green beans, and cornbread muffins at our own table.

In other words, I lie (sometimes) ... in church ... just to see the expression on Gail's face when I say "hot dogs."

Her mouth falls open. Her eyes widen. She staggers a little. She clutches my arm. "HOT dogs again, on a Sunday, you just had hot dogs last week, I can't believe you like hot dogs so much, why do you like hot dogs so much, what kind of hot dogs do you buy, how do you cook your hot dogs, we don't eat hot dogs all that often ... "

My Little Buddy Gail. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

She's priceless.

Today, after answering (truthfully) that our lunch menu consisted of hot dogs, baked macaroni 'n cheese casserole, and two kinds of snack chips, and watching my little buddy run through the full gamut of emotions prompted by that astounding revelation, I assured Gail that someday I'd tell her the secret behind why we like hot dogs so much at our house.

What I didn't tell her was, once I tell her, she'll have to enter the witness protection program. She'll have to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

"Do you really want that, Gail?" I will ask when I finally decide to reveal the secret. Then I will howl inwardly at the half-amused-half-scared-serious expression which is sure to suffuse her cute little face.

But you? To you I shall reveal all, and let the chips (make mine wavy) fall where they may.

If they fall on the floor, Javier'll snap 'em up. No harm, no foul. Six points.

Serve with hot dogs and wavy chips.

The secret is picketchard.

You take a bowl ... it doesn't even have to be a super bowl. It can be a plain bowl.

You take some mustard and squeeze a bunch of it into the bottom of the bowl, until you're tired of squeezing.

You take some ketchup and you squeeze a bunch of that on top of the mustard ... about twice as much ketchup as mustard is best.

You take some large-dice sweet pickle relish and on top of the mustard and ketchup you plop several heaping tablespoonfuls of the pickles.

Stir well and heat in the microwave for a couple of minutes, until piping hot.

Serve with hot dogs and wavy chips. It's good on both.

Real good.

Picketchard.

And now you know.

Real or no real

On Yer Toes Fer Snow. Photo Jennifer Weber 2009Town officials in Cary, North Carolina, were forced to make the agonizing decision of canceling the community's long-planned Winter Wonderland event last weekend.

The town had arranged to truck in 30 tons of manmade snow so that the kiddies could have fun on their sleddies.

Brian Turner of Raleigh-based Snow My Yard assures that he can "produce" when Mother Nature can't.

"Make any day a snow day!" his Web site urges.

Mr. Turner had contracted with the Town of Cary to "produce" six to ten inches of "snow" to cover a quarter acre of Bond Park.

Six hundred people had already bought tickets. Boots, mittens, hats, scarves, and heavy coats had emerged from the backs of closets, ready to warm the backs -- and fronts and sides -- of people.

A monkey wrench was added to the mix, however, when late in the week there materialized the threat of REAL snow.

Lots of it. 

In Cary, North Carolina, five to seven inches is lots.

Anxiously eyeing the National Weather Service's doppler radar, Bond Park Supervisor Bill Eucker -- now there's a name one must spell very carefully -- was forced to cry "Uncle!" when he realized that if it REALLY snowed -- free-for-nothin', courtesy of God -- he'd have a hard time selling store-bought "snow" carted in on trucks from Raleigh.

"If we get that much [snow], kids can sled anywhere. We can't charge a price if you can get it for free."

Ha ha ha! No kidding.

Final funny? The same event was canceled the previous weekend … because of rain.