House update: Monday

[electricland]

According to Aunt Helen, stuff happened!

Today, we did not have lunch.

Dan stayed to work like a beaver refitting the supports around Jen's bathtub and building a little wall so that Brian the Tile could do his stuff. (John was off arranging to have his mother put in the slammer--which sounds absolutely charming--send me!).

Also, Dan and John covered stuff with plastic so that Wayne the Foam would not make too much mess. Wayne finished the first and second floors and has promised to come back to finish the basement headers (for those not in the know, these are the 3 courses of brick above the ground over the basement that constitute a serious heat loss issue).

Brian has finished putting in cement board on 2nd and 1st floor bathrooms.

Dry wall was put in the third floor.

This being Jewish holiday, David will be coming in tomorrow and next day. Yeah, says John.

The truck is in a coma. Not yeah.

Yesterday Jen and Robin found trim for doorways; green board was put in both bathrooms. Jen and Rob went to Rona and found good lights.

Cheers, Helen

And apparently my hosts' medicine cabinet came from the Home Despot. So that's good. I'll phone them and see if they still have it.

Vile, vile, vile smog day today. I stood on the Baldwin Steps next to Casa Loma and could barely see the CN Tower through it. Felt like getting a T-shirt made up to flash at all the single-occupant cars: SMOG DAY! PLEASE CARPOOL! (Actually I went through a number of more hostile variations, but thought that might actually get some results.)

Dinner with the parents last night, laundry, drove out to the Beaches to see Jen and Christine. 102.1 The Edge (I remember when they were CFNY, and were cool) was running the nightly poll: "So, Gwen Stefani just turned 36. Is she now... a cougar?" Did not run off the road. Did not phone to scream at them. Thought about it quite a lot, though. Grr.

Comments

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

Re: Gwen

Only if she habitually pursues men (or women, I suppose) 25-and-under.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

That was kind of what I thought, but did not seem to be what the (male) host was getting at.

MALE CALLER: I don't think she counts as a cougar, because I think the definition of a cougar is a woman who borrows her teenage daughter's slutty clothes to go on the prowl.
HOST: And they're Gwen Stefani's own clothes.
CALLER: Exactly.
HOST: They're pretty slutty, though.

So very much wrong with that exchange. Where to start?

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that this was in context of the Hollaback Girl video, in which GS dresses in various types of cheerleader outfits, and which has gotten some eyes rolling since she's post 30 but is singing/cavorting first person, a song with a high school motif?

Regardless, the Harajuko girls controversy, particularly in light of the "Bananas/B-A-N-A-N-A-S" is much more interesting.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

That was mentioned, yes, and it is very possible. But... cougar?

I mean, if the question had been "Is Gwen Stefani's wardrobe now completely inappropriate?" or "Should Gwen Stefani start acting her age already?" I wouldn't have batted an eye, not that I think they'd ever ask the same about, say, Mick Jagger. It was the deliberate choice of the derogatory term that got to me. It's another way of saying "Any woman over 35 who dresses and acts like a sexual being needs to be cut down to size."

Now, would you mind explaining what you're talking about in the second paragraph?

[monkeycommando.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't consider "cougar" as necessarily derogatory. And (this may be kind of what you're getting at, what was wrong with the chuckleheads) I don't think of cougars as necessarily dressing "too young".

But, I think you can make the case that GS's style now is "younger" than it was when she was in her twenties. And I guess the weird thing is, it doesn't seem to me to have much to do with GS expressing her sexuality.

I'll compose a sufficient explaniation of the other matter later.

[stilldeepwater.livejournal.com]

Why would Gwen Stefani be considered a cougar? She is in her 30s, and married to someone who is the same age as her. She is not middle-aged, divorced and looking for someone new and younger than the ex (my definition of cougar). Also, I don't think cougar is derogatory. See Demi Moore.

Just goes to show that "The Edge" is not really on the cutting edge.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

I gotta say, I have NEVER heard the term cougar used as a neutral or laudatory term - it is ALWAYS used derogatorily in my experience....