One more note for the Underbelly

Good Lord, make the commercials stop.

Underbelly has finally aired and I laughed. I related. I even paid attention to a few of the commercials. So please, please, PR team all cranked up on Red Bull and Pom, ease down the push. I can't take it anymore.

Sure, I laugh every single time I see that more-motherly-rocking-the-barrette Karen say "And maternity underwear's big but it's uh-so comfy!"

Sure, I asked Bruce fourteen times if he was taping it* tonight just in case. You know, just in case the boy wakes up satanically gurgling for his paci or to GET OUT, MOMMY!

Just in case my mom calls or Bruce's mom calls or anything else that could possibly occur that would cause me to miss the actual show after watching what feels like hours of those effing commercials for what has to months of this campaign to recruit mommies, daddies, nanas (I guess, with the inclusion of that freakily melodramatic menopause commercial only to be followed by a -- pause for the eeeeuuuw at the chronology of its invention -- laxative commercial) and all the To-Bes who skipped the second go-around with the Babies R Us "tazer" to saddle up on their couches with me.

And sure, I hope it slows down. Way down. Maybe even, I don't know, STOPS. As a reward for all that playing along, tuning in and even chuckling at the many Doooods the hubbie on the show spewed out, we could be trusted to consult TVGuide.com or maybe just remember the (changing, but still) time slot. By God, I think we've earned it.

Whaddaya say? Can we leave the adverts with the wiper warmer in the way-back?



* Do not poke fun of the obvious 90s-like lack of TiVo, DVR and other gadgetry that would clearly enhance the obvious 80s-like lack of cable and can probably be synced up in ways that befuddle me obvious 00s-lack of Blackberry, Palm, iPod.

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Linkety Dinkety Doo: All Mama

Grab a gimlet, grrrls. It's Thursday, the Underbelly press headache is about to break and I have on my cha-cha boots. Hell, I might even put on some peep toes as a little flip to the snow and 30-degree craziness as we walk to playgroup tomorrow. What could be better?

Every grrrl's gotta have her own Gift Guide. Here's mine over at That's Fit. My one commenter thinks it is "lame," which actually gave me a hearty laugh over my coffee double-glugged with sugar-free vanilla creamer. You know what's more lame than a gift guide, dude? A woman who unwraps a delux shower caddy.*

The gift of a former-Friend-unsuccumbed-to-the-cancellation-curse. Oh thank God.

Damn! My birthday gift slipped out from under me.

Hot damn! My Mother's Day gift has surfaced.










* Cringe along with me...and my (very forgiving) grrrl, Paula Rae.

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Let's talk Larry

Erm, excuse the absense. I was on a much-needed spring break sanity vacay. That is, the kidlet was on spring break and Elmo was not living up to his babysitting bargain. Plus, I was waiting around to find out who Danielynn's daddy is.

OK, waiting around may not be accurate. I wasn't waiting around in the stalking the grocery aisles for the newest edition of Us Weekly waiting or even the flipping past ET to Access waiting. But I admit I had a moment or four when I thought, "Where the hell are those DNA results anyway?"

And now they are back. Not exactly CSI-time warp speed but in time for the 5 o'clock news nonetheless.

Larry's the proud papa and Other-Howard Stern will fade into the background, wiping his brow in relief.

Other than some super-tight forehead lifting, it seems to me that Larry Birkhead's pretty genuine. At least in the snapshots we've seen painstakingly played over and over and over on (was this necessary?) ET's coverage of Anna Nicole's funeral and elsewhere I'm slightly ashamed I visited (but only slightly).  He seems to have clear concern about his daughter's well-being and he seems to still be very much in love with the woman I cringe to hear constantly referred to as "the former topless dancer."

After all, how many men have cartoony Anna Nicole's splayed across their sacrums? OK, maybe a lot. But you can betchyerass Other-Howard doesn't have one.

Now that this piece of the puzzle's been fitted, the inevitable custody games will begin.

Clearly, the fate of a baby girl is no laughing matter. She's lost a lot already, much more than the possibility of all that money and contrived legacy left behind by her mother will ever remedy.

But seriously, the characters here are just as caricatured as Baby Daddy's tat. You can bet that the players will be a weepy Big Lar and Anna Nicole's mama Virgie Arthur, likely wearing yet another mother-of-the-bride dress in court.

Just as Virgie's sheer sleeves won't necessarily make her a bad caregiver for Danielynn, Big Lar's poppy pink tie against a stately suit won't make him a family court dream either. Still, the lovelorn Larry will probably go home with Danielynn in arms, with some kind of cash settlement or at least agreement for the star child to grace rural Kentucky (or wherever) on spring vacations of her own.

Sure, there's a sadness to this story. And there's some head-shaking stupidity. Part of that I accept for myself, for being so sucked in and so involved in a web of nothing.

Yet, here I am glad that Other-Howard is going home to all his fake prescriptions and unmet deals with shady docs while Big Lar's getting ready to cuddle his girl. Tears falling from his sparkly blue eyes and slightly-shifted hairline trembling.





 

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