Arizona Autumn

Lately, my favorite blogs from all over the world have been clogged with  beautiful pictures of fall; trees bursting with deep color, piles of pumpkins and sweaters, sweaters, sweaters.

Well I'll have you know that we've got sweaters here in Mesa, Arizona too.  Just this morning I was in the middle of a whole group of sweaters at the gym and none of us smelled too pretty.  We would have been sweating even more if we had been wearing sweaters.

Even still, signs of fall are everywhere around me. 

 My toes, lacquered a deep shade of eggplant and snuggled in my favorite Teva sandals,  contrast brilliantly against the green winter rye grass

Nixon always changes his hairdo in the fall

A branch of the neighbors lemon tree droops invitingly over our back wall, 

reminding me it's almost time to start my yearly lemon theft

 I can always count on the decorative palm at the front door to sprout a hand in October

Campaign signs magically burgeon everywhere from flower beds 

to vacant lots in garish shades of red white and blue

Sadly, the aloe vera plant, which provides cooling relief to sunburned flesh during the summer turns into a deadly skewer of death during the cooler months

Happy Fall!

 

Put up or Dress Up

I know, I know.  You think you are all prepared for Halloween because you have been buying a bag of candy every time you go to the grocery store.  But, ahem... if you check you may find that the 14 bags of snack size Snickers you purchased have all disappeared.  If you can't find them, turn around and look at your bum in the mirror.  That's where I found all my preHalloween candy.  


On to the next thorny quandary: what costume are you going to put together to wow your friends and neighbors?  Let us turn to the man/woman on the street for answers.

The Hendersons are dressing up as Sensei with split personalities

The Darlingham brothers want little Delvin to join them as the Third Musketeer, but he insists on going as the famous "Law and Order" D.A., Fred Thompson.

 Sven won't put down his knitting needles long enough to show you the bodystocking he crafted honoring Freddy Mercury of "Queen"

The Clementines are going as a family of feral foxes

Clarence has grown out of his Spiderman suit and lately he has thinking about becoming a pacifist so he is probably going as the Quaker Oats guy

Donnie is going crazy this year.  He's going to borrow an oboe 
and dress up as a member of the woodwinds section

Ignacio is going as a Republican so his exwife won't recognize him

Sparky is going as a Navy guy as portrayed by a someone from the cast of "Glee"

Norm and Daisy are going as Darth Vader and Chewbacca

 
 Mrs. Schneider doesn't care what the rest of the family is doing.   This year, she is determined to go as "Snooki"

these beautiful people found at http://www.sexypeople-blog.com/

Hunka hunka burning question...

Oprah* interviewed Lisa Marie this week; but forgot to ask her one important question.

How are you two...

related

 

to Wynonna?

*Of course I only watch Oprah when the subject involves national security or Michael Jackson

I Can't Help Myself

In the interest of full disclosure and uncontrollable Grandma Rainy pride, I must reveal that I have two more stellar grandchildren...

each of whom is a darling accessory whenever I venture out with them.  

Photograph by their mother and my accomplished daughter

A Grandma By Any Other Name...

Some ladies have to be dragged into Grandma-land kicking and screaming; hanging on to their ungrandmaness with fake nails embedded with jewels and digging in with their 5"spikey heals.

Some try to carve away their grandma status.

Some just object to the name "Grandma" and come up with their own creative monikers.

Ethel prefers to be called  "Zoom Zoom"

Alberta is partial to NFL, short for "Nasty Female Locks"

Suzette likes to be called "Saucy MeeMaw"

Tammy is going to insist on the name "Lola"

Sheldean had dubs on "Poppers" so Wildean had to settle for "Poppie" and Verdean got stuck with "Popsie".  
Ashley just wished she could be in another family

When Shirley decided she wanted to be called "Nonnie Hottie",

Leonard instantly approved

Nastia looked forward to the grandkids calling her either 

"Caw Caw" or "Meow Meow"

Me?  I'll take "Grandma Rainy"

Most images found here

Campaign Brain Drain

  I am crying bitter tears that midterm elections are only two weeks away.  There is nothing I like more than campaign commercial accusations about the other guy.

 It is a little known fact that they are all produced by a nonthink tank of ten year olds on sabbatical from fifth grade who sit around in beanbag chairs drinking chocolate milk, eating Doritos and coming up with zingers like these.





Did you know that...

• fill in the blank has turned his back on the Mother that paid for his law school by scrubbing floors and selling her own blood?

Did you know that...

• The Society of Paranormal Parents has rated fill in the blank as the number one enemy to extrasensory education in America?

 Did you know that...

• fill in the blank once owned a muskrat farm run by an undocumented Wiccan woman and that fill in the blank continues to make  obscene profits from muskrat pelts, all of which are processed overseas?

  


Did you know that...

• fill in the blank was a bedwetter until ninth grade and yet has voted NINE TIMES against funding for enuresis research and EPTSD (enuretic post traumatic stress disorder)?

 
Did you know that...

•  fill in the blank has a documented addiction to Bingo and the Bingo-wings to prove it?

Oh well, after November we'll always have C-Span

Rescue Me!

At a dining table somewhere near San Jose Mine, Chile 

sits a recently rescued miner and his wife

Miner:  Oh sweetie, this is delicious, I have been dreaming of eating your cooking for the past 69 days.


Wife:  Well enjoy it because I'm going to the mall.


Miner:  What?  I just got home.


Wife:  Exactly.  While you were laying around with your buddies playing cards I've been trapped in the house with our screaming kids.

Miner:  But I was in the dark with nothing to do!

Wife:  That sounds like heaven.

Miner:  But I was under extreme psychological pressure from being with 32 other miners 24 hours a day and they all smelled bad.

Wife:  Did you have to change their diapers?

Miner:  Well no, but...

Wife:  Did you have to watch Barbie: Mermaidia 114 times?

Miner:  Well no, but...

Wife:  Did you have to extract a lego out of a nostril with your sharpened fingernail?

Miner:  But I lost ten pounds!


Wife:  With a withering glare  Well, I gained twenty because you know how I eat when I'm worried.


Miner:  But aren't you excited?  You're married to a big celebrity now.

Wife:  I'll believe that when Antonio Banderas plays you in the movie.  

See ya!

Smell Your Way to Prosperity

Hold on to your calculator and install your pen protector in your left front pocket, it's learning time with Larainy.

FACT # 1:  The United States produces this thing called the gross domestic product which, contrary to what you are thinking is not a giant pile of manure.  It is somewhat akin to a super ginormous umbrella that shelters many, many products that you love.  We can think of each of these products as a "leg" dangling off the umbrella.  Oh wait, let's start over.  The big giant thing called the gross domestic product can be compared to the biggest spider of all time and it has a bunch of legs.  There, that's better.


FACT # 2:  One of the biggest hairy legs on the GDP spider is the business of smelly things; or more correctly, the business of making positive smelly things to cover up negative smelly things.

FACT #3:   Our economy is currently "in the toilet" or more correctly "in the outhouse receptacle".  EXCEPT IN THE AREA OF SMELLY THINGS!!!  The average American citizen would rather buy something that makes something smell good than eat.


FACT #4:  If your paltry savings are not gone, you need a safe place to put them so they will grow and flourish, and not wither up like your Aunt Ermengarde who is 113.


Larainy has come to your rescue with a HUGE investment opportunity.  I found a cute lab coat at TJ Maxx and have been experimenting in my kitchen with various "masking scents".  These smells are guaranteed to overpower every smelly smell currently produced in your home with an acceptable, even pleasant smell that will help prevent brain damage from your current stinkitudiness.


Currently in the test phase are:


Wealthy vanilla - The crisp smell of newly minted 100 dollar bills with a slight vanilla undertone.
Masks - The smell of generic hotdogs cooked in the microwave.

Fruity Prosperity - The scent of exotic fruits you never buy like gooseberries, currants, figs and kumquats blended with a frankincense overtone.
Masks - The smell of a glass of spilled milk, that has gone undetected under the couch since last week.

Leather and Lace - Manly touches of new riding chaps and expensive briefcases combined with brief waves of expensive women's underwear recently folded around a lavendar sachet in a bureau drawer of burled walnut.
Masks - The smell of his gym clothes after a pickup game of basketball and the sodden t-shirt she was wearing while she cried for an hour because he was playing basketball with his friends instead of watching Grey's Anatomy with her.




I accept cash or gold bars

Painful Memories

A sensitive reader asks, 

Dear Larainy,

Since it is a well known fact that most comedy is rooted in pain, what are the moments that have left you so horribly scarred?

Sincerely,
Marbloid Hansen


First of all Marbloid, thank you for asking such a superbly sensitive question, when you obviously bear the scars of the horrible name you bear.  Why did your parents name you after your Aunt Margaret who suffered from hemmorhoids?  Why oh why did they do that to you?

But enough about you, let's talk about me again.

There were many incidents during my formative years that made me into a wry chronicler of life's droll indignities, but I will only name a few because I know you are trying to cut down on the antidepressants.

1.  It was picture day in second grade and my parents were out of town, leaving me in the care of my dear auntie, who, although a wonderful person, set my hair in little pink rollers that produced a hairstyle called the "George Washington" because it resulted in something resembling a powdered wig.  (Biting of lip and formation of tiny blood pearl )  This 1776 hairstyle ruined my fashion cred for the rest of my grade school career.

2.  As a tender preteen, I was trying on a pair of new jeans in the tiny confines of the dressing room at Maxine's fashions when my feet became hopelessly tangled in a denim morass.  I lost my balance, pitching headlong through  the flimsy dressing room door and sprawling into the curious view of other shoppers.  I lay, hogtied, my old elastic challenged panties unflatteringly lit by garish flourescent fixtures. (Tiny salty trickle escapes down cheek)


3.  I had seven brothers and was often forced to take refuge in a tree or improvise a shelter over the clothesline, living off the land which included eating raw eggs from the chicken coop and live polliwogs from the Polliwog pond when they were in season.

Okay, so it isn't exactly "Precious" but we comedians have to work with what we've got

Fashion 101

Dear readers, did you spend half an hour rifling through your closet this morning only to give up in disgust and pull your pair of stretchy  pants from the hamper, pairing them with the blouse that only has one tiny stain that is located somewhere under the the shadow of your enormous bosom so nobody can see it anyway?

Well I have only two words to say about your fashion sense.

Tsk, tsk.

You have come to the right place because today Larainy Days is offering a completely free Fashion Tutorial that will help you know

• What is up and what is down this season
• What to wear with what for what
• What to say when someone asks "What are you wearing?"

First of all, you must check out this fabulous fashion blog The Sartorialist.  (Don't worry what a sartorialist is because you could only fathom the meaning with your thinking cap on and you already took it off to read Larainy Days.) The Sartorialist features candid photos of chic people from fashionable spots like Milan Italy, Paris France and Hygiene, Colorado.  

This fashionbloganisto is so popular he even gets invited to exclusive runway events where emaciated designers hang their new collections on models who look pregnant if they swallow a grape.

Look and learn dear reader 

Look and learn 

WHAT:  Edgar Allen Poe is a HUGE influence this year.  Clothe yourself in raven from neck to toe and shame on you if you sneeze because allergies are so 90's.

WHERE:  Suitable for a funeral if it is not outdoors during condor mating season.

WHAT:  Steal the top off a mother of the bride ensemble, pair it with hot pants, grease your legs and slide them into a pair of sassy open toe boots and you are up to date girl.

WHERE:  No one will care whether your little darling is the worst goalie in history when you stride up and down the soccer sidelines in this little number.  You will even be forgiven for forgetting treats.

WHAT:  Who cares if the puppy chewed up the laundry again?  Throw it over your shoulder, grab your umbrella and let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

WHEN:  This outfit is so fabulous it cannot be ruined by your school crossing guard vest and kids will follow fluttering fringe anywhere, so be a vibrant volunteer.

WHAT:  Someone rode their motorcyle plumb through a tornado and their loss is your gain.  Lacerated leather laced with zippers scream style this year.

WHEN:  Everyone needs an outfit that will take them to the front of the line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.  This ensemble says "Give me what I want right now or I will call my brother Edward Scissorhands and he will sculpt your face."

WHAT:  Remember, only inney bellybuttons are inney this year.  Outey bellybuttons are outey.  Outeys have two options 1) surgery or 2) super glue.

WHEN:  When you are ready for a roadtrip, tie jumper cables around your waist in a carefree knot and take to the highway knowing that you are prepared.

WHAT:  Pajamas go right from the bed to the boardroom this year saving oodles of time getting ready in the morning.  If you forget your bra, don't forget your binoculars

WHEN:  Wear this while walking in a back and forth pattern across your hardwood floors and they will be dustfree in a jiffy.

WHAT:  Who cares if animal skin patterns are out of style in bathmats this year.  Repurpose by tying about the waist with a fabulous skinny belt and you are good to go.

WHEN:  When your cat is feeling down, she will find comfort in your furry lap.

These smashing fashion photos all found at the sartorialist