Saturated Fats and Cows in Hats

I'm so sorry....a rogue Dr. Suess gene must have taken over for a moment. But still, I do have photos of both abovementioned items--saturated fats:

(the cookies I made yesterday, although I generally refer to them as something a bit more appetizing than "saturated fats" when serving them to friends....) and cows in hats:

These are the Dulaan hats, more than slightly improved by the purchase of a Susan Bates pompom maker. The models, clearly needing to grow their heads if hat modeling is to be any sort of reliable career for them, are in fact so small-headed now as to render the hats blindfolds, I know, but you can kind of get the idea of how they're supposed to look (besides which, it's funny to take pictures of stuffed cows in big hats.) The purple hat has a k2p2 rib edging which I folded up (so the cow could see, of course); the pink hat has a rolled brim and is so soft I want to roll in it (which I won't because...well...eww. Who wants a rolled in hat, no matter how cold it is?)

That was my day; how was yours? The temperature is still in the 20's, which converts on the Ms. K scale to "Oh my god I'm going to freeze my dainties off if it doesn't warm up." I huddled in the house and watched football and made a hat. My life is a glittering whirl, isn't it?

Because I like background noise when I'm knitting, particularly when knitting a stockinette hat in the round for HOURS after the game is over and my brain is in danger of becoming numb, I turned on the TV....which actually hastened the numbing process considerably, and led me to this:

Dear TV Producers:

First off, thank you so much for the huge number of options available to me on your fine stations. Truly, it now takes me at least twice as long as it used to realize that there is nothing on except assorted varieties of crap.....er, fine programming....something like that. As much as I am certain that you all possess skills and education and experience far surpassing my own in the matters of public entertainment, I would still respectfully like to offer just a few suggestions. For instance:

1. I'm smarter than I look. Really. I know that I don't necessarily look like a Rhodes scholar when sitting on the sofa surrounded by fuzzy yarn bits, swearing colorfully at a mangy looking pompom, but you can take my word for it. I do not believe that 30-year-olds can pass for 16, that all crimes are solved within an hour, that all mothers look like models about 5 minutes after giving birth, or that anyone at all can clean the toilet while still having perfect hair and nails and while dressed in designer jeans. Call me a prodigy, but I see through these things.

2. Whatever genius came up with "Surreal Life" needs to go have a lie down. The premise--taking a bunch of has-been actors and putting them in a house to have an assortment of zany adventures--is based on a particularly noticeable logical fallacy. That is, they're has-beens because no one cares to watch them even when they're doing something interesting. Living in the same house and bitching a lot doesn't really count as interesting.

3. I don't know when people yelling at one another started to pass for entertainment...but honestly. I've left relationships over precisely that sort of thing. I don't really want to watch other people do it.

4. Women can be dressed as something other than prostitutes and still be interesting. Please stop taking advice on that matter from the designers of Barbie.

5. During the last few days of being housebound, I have managed to change channels onto the same few shows so many times that I was starting to think I was in my own personal version of "Groundhog Day". If it was lame the first 12 times, it probably is the 27th as well. And if it wasn't, trust me--it will start to become so.

6. It is not a crime to put thought provoking things on television.

7. Sensationalism sells--I realize this. But the show "Mega Disasters" that was on the history channel yesterday might just as well have been titled "We're all going to die, feel free to panic." Can we present science without trying to scare the crap out of people? Please?

8. For that matter, several shows seem to be incorrectly titled. For instance, "America's Next Top Model" really ought to be called "Snotty Teenagers Under Pressure"; "COPS" (which I swear to wool I have not watched in many years) could easily be "Dumbass Criminals Making Even Bigger Asses of Themselves" (and by the way, am I the only one amazed that some of those people actually gave PERMISSION for that footage to be used? Seriously, what do they have to be caught doing in order to say something like "No, I don't really think everyone needs to see me rolling around drunk on the lawn with my pants down"?), and "Top Chef" could be called "Bitchy Cooks Who Really Ought Not to Have Sharp Things."

9. Being a bitch is not a good enough reason to be famous. Neither is it a good premise for an entire TV show.

10. Ditto with big boobs.

11. You can tune in almost any time of day to find real life stories of women getting "improved" with hours of plastic surgery to breasts and thighs and bellies and so on. Do you guys all hate women or what?

12. I don't care what Rosie O'Donnell thinks of Donald Trump or vice versa. I never will no matter how many times you show the interviews and clips.

13. The word "heroic" gets bandied about a lot. Can we reserve it for people who have stood up to fear and danger in order to help someone else--and not an actress who lost a bunch of weight and got her boobs done when her husband left her (with two houses and $100,000 a month in alimony)?

Thank you for your attention to these matters. I realize that showing restraint is tricky business, but I believe that quality entertainment is worth it. And no, I am not including a picture of my boobs and I do not wish to be on a program wherein I wrestle a top female TV producer in a vat of jello. No, not even lime.

Sincerely

Ms. F. Knitingale