My husband just passed me the Kaukauna port wine spreadable cheese and I find myself strangely overcome with lust and desire. For the cheese. And as I skimmed a little of it off the top with a fresh Wheat Thin (BAKED! Not fried!) just now and savored its pure awesomeness, suddenly my head heard the lyrics to “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. And I thought, hell, I haven’t written on my blog recently. I shall post about my favorite things. Because everybody totally cares about them.
Which naturally led me to think of Oprah, and her favorite things. Remember when she would do that Oprah’s Favorite Things show where she would just talk about products the whole time while her audience members got all the stuff? The first couple of years she did that show, it was off the hook. I would watch and lust after all the stuff she picked out, in awe that the whole audience got to take it all home. But by year three, that show just pissed me off. All those screaming, fainting whores audience members got thousands of dollars worth of stuff for being a damn teacher or because someone wrote Oprah a note and said they helped an orphan escape from Russia or they just showed up on the right day. I’d feel like crap, because the only time I got tickets for Oprah was immediately following 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. I shit you not. Anyway, I just got to the point where I stopped watching that show every year because it would just make me angry that I wasn’t there while all those lucky ass bitches jumped around with their heads turning around 360 degrees and popping off (which mine would have as well, no doubt).
Jealousy is a bitch. Sometimes I would tell myself that she picked out all lame stuff I wouldn’t want or know what to do with anyway – like soaps that are like $13 and refrigerators with built-in TVs that would probably only fit into 5% of the kitchens in this great nation. And I couldn’t help but wonder if a cable or satellite hookup was necessary and who the hell has that stuff in the kitchen? See? So who would want to win that on Oprah’s Favorite Things? Me. ME, DAMMIT!! That show made me hate myself. Thanks, Oprah.
Then one year Oprah decided instead of giving away an obscene amount of shit to people, she would give everybody $100, and then they’d have to go out and give it to someone else and whoever was the most creative or made the most out of that $100 got to come back at a later show. Ha ha Bit-chez! That put a smile on my face because I knew as the cameras panned the crowd of pleasantly smiling faces, those women and their mothers were secretly thinking: “God DAMN you, OPRAH! I got a ticket for your Favorite Things show and all I’m taking away is this punk-ass gift card and a mandate to give it to someone else? I fucking hate you. And your dogs too.” But I’m sure in the end, giving away that $100 made them feel so good and warm and nice inside that they didn’t hold a grudge. Or tell everyone they knew how they got screwed and wanted to die. Which would totally have been my — I mean, a healthy reaction. I’m pretty sure.
Anyway, I digress. It’s just that I can’t think about Oprah’s Favorite Things without wonder, fascination and pure snarkiness. On to revealing my majestic list of favorite things. If I had a blog wherein I could name all my favorite things and give them to those of you that regularly comment, this is what you would get:
1) One year’s worth of Kaukauna port wine spreadable cheese and Wheat Thins.
2) A Mac.
3) A subscription to “O” and “Us Weekly” — the only publications with real import these days.
4) Bailey’s Irish Cream, Kahlua, a gallon of skim milk and a martini shaker. Equal parts of these ingredients shaken with ice makes me incredibly happy. I think it would make you happy too.
5) Take 5 bars. A lifetime supply. Proof that God loves us.
6) TiVo. I honestly don’t have the words to explain my love, devotion and adoration for TiVo.
7) Counting Crows “August and Everything After”. Best album ever.
8.) Vaseline Cocoa Butter Deep Conditioning lotion. I suppose it’s a good moisturizer, but more importantly it somehow captures “new baby smell” like you’re within a few inches of a newborn’s little head at all times. I get high off the fumes on a pretty regular basis. SO much easier than having to give birth again.
9) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Funniest book of all time. All time.
10) Tickets to Oprah’s show. If you get them, be sure to let me know. We can go together and hope that my attendance doesn’t mark the end of the world. Oh yeah, and did I ever tell you about the time BD turned down a job at Harpo? She brings everybody and their families on these really swank all-expenses paid vacations every year. I would have hunted her down and convinced her by now of our destiny if he’d just taken it. But he didn’t. And we’re still married. That’s love.
11) Josh Groban’s “Noel”. Shut up. Wipe the smirk off your face, because I’m giving it to you for free, bitch.
12) McDonald’s gift certificates. Enough to buy a Value Meal #2 with Diet Crack Coke and two happy meals with apple dippers twice weekly.
Okay, and go to this post to see the Oprah Favorite Things SNL skit, along with all my favorite YouTube stuff…
So I feel like if you got those 12 things today, you probably wouldn’t have a need for anything else. Ever. Feel free to print and substitute for your Christmas/ Hanukkah / Kwanzaa/ Festivus list. One day when I am rich and famous and lunching regularly with Oprah, I will make sure that my commenters do receive all of these things, making your friends seethe with jealousy and rage.
‘Tis the season, after all.
(Love) Notes To Self 