Rock the Vote!!

Texans (and all other's, for that matter!)  It's CRUCIAL that you make it out to vote Tuesday to help us elect former mayor Bill White to the Governor's Mansion!  We CANNOT tolerate another 4 years of "Prick" Perry and his repubican ilk!!


There are also TONS of races for various and sundry judges here in Harris County- please help us keep the Teabagging rebubicans OFF of those benches!!  We need judges who are impartial to protect our rights- not judges motivated to protect "big bidness"!


If you need help deciding which candidates will be most likely to support your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,  take a look at the recommendations made by the Houston Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus!  And if you live elsewhere,  you may find some appropriate recommendations in this endorsement by the League of Drag Queen Voters!!

Miss Ginger certainly hopes that her dear readers will vote for candidates that are known to support human rights!  The rights to worship, speak, and love as we wish were the rights this country was founded upon, and those rights don't seem to be a high priority for the teabagging repubicans right now, who seem to be more more interested in protecting their own personal business interests than the civil liberties we Americans so graciously appreciate!


Rock your vote,  and make it count!!

A Scary Halloween Scene!

 It's a SCARY Halloween at Chez Ginger!!  Miss G decided to stay home and rinse out her wigs instead of running around with the amateur draggers on Halloween, and it looks like cannibals have been in her bathroom taking scalps!! Synthetic hair has to drip dry, so there's nothing to do but wait!

Now that the garage is cleaned out, she's digging into the drag closet to get things all in order there!   It's about time to start this years Mardi Gras costume, so it's a good thing this burst of energy came to our gurl when it did!

Happy Halloween, everybody! Whatever you're gonna be:  be a good one!

Weekend Ketchup!

Wow- it's been a crazy couple of weeks- time for Miss G to ketch you up!!


She's finally feeling better after her hideous illness!  It lasted every moment of 7 days,  and the first couple of days back to work she didn't feel great. But now she's back to full speed,  feeling better than she's felt in months!  I guess all that rest did the ole girl some good!  And she lost about 25 lbs- so maybe that's the start of a new trend, as well!


Miss G has also found a post-illness burst of ambition and has whipped herself into a cleaning frenzy.  She spent the day restoring the garage to it's proper order, and tonight she's going to tackle Ginger's side of the closet!  Wish her luck!

By now everyone is caught up on the Project Runway disappointment- ugh, what a let down!  I cannot believe Michael Kors was so steadfastly behind that ugly brown granolawear!  She had all that time and money, and all we got was "this sad, brown collection".  Mondo was robbed!  Plain and simple!  I knew PR would be a letdown when it moved to Lifetime, and I was not wrong.  If Heidi doesn't get things reigned in a bit she's not going see a Season 9 or 10!










And what's up with this trend of putting bitchy Brits in their own shows?  It started a few years back with that nighttime game show with that horrible little woman- what was it called? The Weakest Link- had to google it. And the Supernanny. And those old British Ladies that bitch about how dirty your house is. And Tabitha's Salon Takeover (not really a Brit but it's the whole accent thing...) 

And now Lifetime brings us Hayley Taylor,  an "employment expert" who brings that famous British "tough love" across the pond to put American's back to work.  Miss G is not sure what an "employment expert" is, or what qualifies Hayley to be one, but she decided to roll with it! 

Miss G watched the first episode, mostly because the unemployed husband looked like a cute version of Harry Connick, Jr.  Sean was portrayed as a down on his luck ex-Marine who had little job experience and no real job skills after his stint (whatever happened to "be all that you can be?")  Anyho,  a quick internet search revealed that Sean has done a little "modeling on the side" , which leads Miss G to wonder where else this thick-lipped slicker's money maker has been!  




Of course, Hayley whips Sean and his homely little wife into shape, encouraging them to clean up the dog feces in the bedroom so they'll feel better about coming home from work when they actually have a job.  The show has all the trappings of the "occupational reality" genre Miss G loves:  "challenges" where they do volunteer work to make them feel better about themselves, backroom cameras where we can watch them in their job interviews and enjoy Hayley's play by play commentary, and the unknown drama in the end as we all wait for the phone to ring and the job offers to come in.


Kinda boring, really, and certainly not riveting enough to keep Miss G watching.  Now that Golden Girls has moved to the Hallmark Channel,  Miss G really has no use for Lifetime- Television for Tampon Companies!

Makes Perfect Sense!

Oddly Specific, one of Miss Ginger's favorite blogs, recently ran this pic with a caption intimating that is doesn't make sense to them.

It makes perfect sense to Miss Ginger! The stall is reserved for people with mobility impairments and and hoop skirts!  Have you ever tried to relieve yourself while wearing a hoop skirt?  Standing, sitting, or any other way around,  you're going to need more space than the standard bathroom stall allows!

Miss Ginger applauds the owners of this establishment for making it drag queen friendly!!

Happy Birthday Dear Maddie!!

May you have an EXCELLENT day filled with yummy delights!!!

Boy G Makes Headlines Again!

More like tail- lines, really!  If you read this article, all the way to the end, he is quoted in the last line!

Macy's and other chains tailor products to individual markets | Business | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

"For Macy's, district merchant George Burch, who serves as a liaison between buyers and store managers in Houston and Louisiana, predicted sales could grow even more.

"The longer we do it," he said, "the more we can learn about the customer and the more we can refine the assortment."

It's a really well-written article, and it was the cover story of Sunday's business section! Hope my friends in GingerNation enjoy reading it!

Miss Ginger Mops Up! A Consumer Product Review!!

Today Miss Ginger felt well enough to try to clean the house a bit,  and realized the mops that dear Celia has been using have not been replaced in a jillion years!  The microfiber pads are getting raggedy, she has to hold the extend-able handle in the right position with Saran Wrap, and if you mop too fast the whole head falls off! Quelle dommage! It's a wonder the poor dear has stayed with me!


Being the giving soul that she is, (and not wanting to have to use that broken down equipment herself) Miss G took advantage of a lull in her miseries to run over to Ghetto Kroger around the corner, to pick up a new mop and a few other necessities.




As she carried in the sleek, aerodynamic Freedom Mop she had just acquired, she realized just how much housekeeping had changed since her childhood, when our unfixed Irish Setter Holly would celebrate her "seasons", and Momma G would follow behind her dutifully with the "dog mop",  dabbing away at the droplets the escaped the poor beast's diaper! Momma G always kept 2 mops hanging on the water mains that fed the water heater. The newest one, her "good" mop, was used for general housekeeping.  As it became ratty and tattered (and one of the 5 boys needed a wooden mop handle for a school/scout/athletic project), the "good" mop was converted to the "dog" mop, to be used only to clean up any of the disgusting things that spill out of Irish Setters with amazing frequency. So, a new "good" mop was acquired, leaving the old "good" mop to thank it's lucky stars it was not yet the old "dog" mop, which by this point had generally been beheaded, it's rigid body forming the support of some 8 year old boy's engineering project. Good Mop... Dog Mop....Stickball. A rebirth, of sorts- "ashes to ashes, mops to mops...."   But I digress!

Back in Momma G's day, there were but 2 kinds of mops- string mops and sponge mops.  Momma G was not a fan of the sponge mop- it didn't hold up well to bleach, a necessary warfare chemical in Momma G's arsenal.  Our mops were string mops, hanging on the water heater looking like two bad tranny hookers after a night at the car wash!


Momma G would be AMAZED at the variety of mops available today, with interchangeable pads, motorized sprayers, and more plastic body parts than Amanda Lepore! Miss G was like a kid in the candy store looking at all the options, but she's had her eye on this practical beauty for awhile!




The Freedom Mop from Libman seems to Miss G to be a great marriage of convenience, good design, and value-  all important criteria in the quest for Miss G's ever coveted lipstick rankings! Miss G has always avoided the "spray mop" category, largely because they require their own (expensively packaged) proprietary cleaning solutions! They go so far as to engineer the bottles where you would have to break the top off to open them, rendering them completely useless for refilling! Some even use disposable pads that aren't even durable enough to clean an average size house without disposing of several!  What a waste!!




The Freedom mop uses a cleverly designed solution tank that is designed to be refilled over and over again.  It's your choice whether to buy large bottles of premade solutions to pour into it, or to fill it with your own homemade concoction, but either way save over the cost of the other brands' overpriced, over engineered bottles! The large trigger at the handgrip has great leverage, so you don't pump your hand into cramps as you spray the solution, and the removable pad sticks on firmly with corner to corner velcro, so it stays flat and won't come loose!  You can buy extra pads to change them quickly as you move from one room to another with different surfaces!  Best of all, once you're done, you can throw all the pads into the washer with the rest of your cleaning rags, and they'll be fresh and clean for the next use!  No more drag queens on the water heater, Momma G!


Whether you fill it with Clorox, Bona, or Anti-icky-poo,  the Freedom Mop from Libman certainly makes buckets and wringing obsolete!  For quality, design, ease of use, and sustainable use of resources,  Miss Ginger gives it the coveted 5 lipsticks!!!

Leave a comment and less Miss G know what products YOU would like to see her review!!!

Miss Ginger's Malaise is Your Forewarning!

Those of you who follow the FABULOUS Miss G know that she has not been her fabulous self lately-  she's been quite ill with one of the nastiest bugs she ever remembers in her short, sweet life!  Miss G is not usually one to get ill,  especially with stomach bugs, but this one hit her hard and hung around for the count!  In the midst of day 4,  she still has cramping and "the miseries", but she does feel like she's closer to the end than the beginning of this one!  This is no "24-hour bug"-  it's going to be at least 5 full days of symptoms.  Since she can't get more than about 5 feet from the bathroom,  she's had plenty of time to do lots of research, and brings you some advice on identification, care, and prevention of this miserable crud!


Sometimes referred to a "stomach flu", the only likeness this malady has to influenza is that it is caused by a virus.  According to the Centers for Disease Control,  there are three main types of viruses that cause Viral Gastroenteritis, each with a "most likely" population target and outbreak season. It really doesn't matter which virus you get, because there is no treatment available for any, other than symptom relief and protection from dehydration.  Viruses tend to be seasonal and regional, and a bit of networking has helped Miss Ginger determine that she has had a course of symptoms similar to several other folks she knows.  Bacterial gastroenteritis is much less common, with e coli and salmonella being the most common culprits. Symptoms are usually milder, and most healthy humans will survive those infections without treatment as well.

So, if you live along the Gulf Coast and want to know what symptoms to expect:


Onset: sudden, with extreme body aches, headache, weakness, and malaise.
6-18 hours: moderate to high fever (103 F), nausea, vomiting, severe diarrhea.
18-48 hours: continued moderate fever, lack of appetite, diarrhea.
48-72 hours: low to no fever, stomach cramps, diarrhea.

Not fun, and I can assure you that even from behind this young lady looks much more poised and in control than Miss G! A hurling drag queen is NOT a pretty site, unless she's hurling clever quips and bon mots!


So, how does one treat this unglamorous malady?  Well,  the treatments are not particularly glamorous, either,
but they are important, so here goes:

1.  HYDRATE!  It is so hard, when it's coming our of both ends, but really, the only REAL danger of this illness is dehydration.  A childless and whimpering Miss Ginger was quickly turned on to the wonders of Pedialyte by some of her FABULOUS coworkers, and she has to say that, at certain times, it was easier to keep down than water.  It's like a magic elixir for the pukey!
2.  BREAK THE FEVER as soon as you can with Advil or Aleve.  Miss Ginger is not a doctor and cannot prescribe medical advice, but she took 4 Aleve, puked her guts out, and immediately began to feel some slight relief.
3. TRY TO EAT when and what you can.  The BRAT diet has been questioned as nutritionally unsound, but we're only living on it for 5 days, and there are some elements that may relieve symptoms. Add chicken soup and mild foods as you can.
4. REST AND WAIT. That's all you can do.  Anti-diarrheals are not recommended because they may slow the body's ability to rid itself of the offending bug, and in a day 4 fit of desperation, Miss G discovered they won't work, anyway!
5. RIDE IT OUT. Do what you can to stay comfortable.  Peppermint Tea and a heating pad helped a bit with the abdominal cramps.  Diaper wipes were much kinder than dry tissue to Miss G brutalized hiney. And there is something in Coca Cola that soothes the stomach.

So, after that pretty picture, Miss G is sure you are thinking "Man, I SURE don't want to get that! What do I do?"  Well,  you need to be wary, because these viruses are highly contagious, sometimes even after the patient is feeling better and back to work.  By and large they are spread through fecal contamination.

Miss G sent her peeps to the Google Searchbar to check it out your best defense, and here's what they found:

Soap and water is your best defense! Duration is the important factor, not soap type.  The CDC suggests teaching children to wash their hands for the length of time it takes to sing their ABC's, but Miss G can't imagine that it wouldn't prevent adults from rushing the job as well!  And the FDA says that the type of soap doesn't really matter, and antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers may actually do more to harm the public health. Miss G says use what's there, and "sing out, Louise!"

This type of infection can also be spread by food handlers who don't wash their hands properly.  The popular "pot luck" seems to Miss G like an infection fest waiting to happen.  As a general practice, she makes it a point never to eat food from a kitchen that isn't professionally managed, or at least comes from the home of someone she knows well.  During a known outbreak, she thinks this measure is crucial! At work, she politely declines pot luck lunches and opts for something she has brought from home or purchased from a reputable food service area.

And finally, it can be spread by close contact.  If you're sick, stay home.  Even after you feel well, proper sanitation of bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom linens is crucial to prevent spread. Close the toilet lid before you flush. According to the National Health Service in the UK,  flushing vaporizes germs that can travel up to six feet away from the bowl, taking up to 2 hours to settle!  Upon learning this,  Miss Ginger began keeping a bottle of Pine Sol or Clorox in each bathroom, adding a few drops to the bowl BEFORE closing the lid and flushing, to prevent such vaporization.  It just seemed like a good idea to her!

So, Miss G is going to miss the IPR Ball tonight, in the interest of her health and others!  The only thing uglier than a sick drag queen is a whole room full of them!

Miss Ginger's NEW Feature!!

Check out the grey bar above and search my FABULOUS world! Anything and everything you're looking for can be found right here from the FABULOUS pages of Miss G! No need to open extra windows or fiddle with picking a search engine- Miss Ginger has people for that, and they are here to help you! Use this feature often, and let us know how it works! Miss Ginger and her peeps are working hard to make it to the far end of the internet- so you don't have to!!

Fanning the STANK- Miss G's Project Runway Opinion

A sick and feverish Miss Ginger watched the 2nd from finale Project Runway last night with disgust and nausea- from more than just this bug she's been battling the last few days! Even though she had been able to keep down water for about 8 hours, she was glad she still had her puke bucket handy when Gretchen's "fashions" came down the runway!

Miss Ginger just does not get Gretchen's sense of "style" one little bit. First of, this is a runway fashion show, not the hemp fibers section at Whole Earth Provision! Not that there's anything WRONG with that, if it's your "aesthetic". But you don't have to go to New York fashion week to get it. You can find it in the corner of an urban flea market in most major metropolitan areas.

And Gretchen loves to market her garments as "wearable" for "real women", but what real woman is going to walk around in this Mobius strip of a garment, hoping an updraft doesn't raise her skirt and drop her top! Miss Ginger is not even a real woman, and she wouldn't tie herself up in that to take out the garbage!

Gretchen said she wanted to play with print mixing, and to do something exciting with animal prints. Well, dear, the rules of print mixing are simple and finite: one print must take the lead, and the other must recede into a "solid". Cheat off of Mondo- he's a master at it. Oh, and PS- there's nothing fresh or exciting about leopard print- it's a little trick we retailers throw at you every year in July like clockwork. We call it "transitional", because it's too early for full-on fall, but too late to bring in spring. It's the same reason you get "spectator" every January. It's as cliche as it comes! And because you included the little "flesh belt" of which you are so fond, you have struck the fatal combination of UGLY and FIGURE FAILING! AUF! Why are you still here wasting oxygen that could nourish the minds of talented designers like Andy and Mondo. my little Mondo!

And that leaves Michael C. Poor Michael C. Poor pitiful Michael C. Poor Michael C who Ivy and Natalie trashed, and Nina and Heidi bashed, and Michael Kors envisioned naked every night before bedtime! If it had not been for Kors, we all know Michael C would have been gone a long time ago.

As snarky as that last paragraph sounded, Miss Ginger is not a Michael C. hater. There are a few truths she holds to be self-evident:

1. His technical skills, while questioned at the beginning, proved themselves in the end.

2. He got screwed on the whole color palette criticism. It's not like Gretchen had 1,000 shades of ugly in her collection!

3. His "schlock it out" vs. "make it work" mentality serves his effortless chic aesthetic well. While others spent hours torturing fabric into submission, he spoke to several pieces of fabric and worked with the ones that spoke back. When it worked, it worked!

4. His breakdown at the end was cringe invoking.

Miss Ginger is not a Michael C hater, and she really would rather have seem him go to Fashion Week vs. Gretchen. Plain and simple, she hates Gretchen's aesthetic. Granolawear has absolutely no appeal to Miss G. Michale C's glam aesthetic, when spot on, was beautiful. Miss Ginger is not sure he has the experience or formal education to WIN fashion week, but it would have been more interesting to see his collection than more of Gretchen's cat vomit.

The one that really nauseated an already dispeptic Miss Ginger the most was Michael C's boyfriend, heretofore known as "Outtie". "Outtie" outted Michael C to his parents, and forced an issue that every gay man should be allowed to handle on their own. No one has the right to out another human being- that's as cruel and unjust as it gets!

And what kind of gay man is Outtie anyway? THE Tim Gunn is coming to your home for lunch, and the best you can come up with is white rice in a Sam's Club aluminum foil pan? It's TIM fucking GUNN for Chrissake- do we have to have the POTS on the table?! Go to Macy's and pick up a couple of decent platters and a bowl- Martha Stewart makes them by hand- and they're cheap!! Hell, steal a "tablescape" from Sandra Lee if you have to- but aluminum foil hotel pans?! What is this- the church bring-a-pot?!

Miss Ginger is as obsessed by a lovely table as she is by lovely fashion... but you knew that, didn't you.

The Bayou City

Houston is known as "the Bayou City", mostly because it sounds way better than "the Drainage Ditch City"! Having grown up in South Louisiana, Miss Ginger probably knew what a bayou was long before she could define the words "stream" or "creek". Today's Houston Chronicle had cute article called "Bayous for Dummies" that Miss Ginger thought was clever and well written, if not a tiny bit misguided. The part that she thought was questionable is that the writer almost seems judgmental that the Cajuns created the word "bayou" instead of simply using the French word "rive" to describe these bodies of water. There are, however, some distinct differences among bayous, creeks, streams, and rivers, and Miss Ginger is about to set you all straight, so to speak!

1. Bayous are different from rivers in their volume and rate of flow. Rivers tend to be much deeper, and flow at pretty much the same rate all the time. Bayous, Mother Nature's drainage ditches, flow rapidly for brief periods after rainstorms, but return to their lazy, barely moving state as rapidly as possible.

2. Bayous are different from creeks and streams in that they never dry out. We have creeks and streams here, as well, mostly in North Louisiana and West Texas, where the terrain becomes less flat, if not actually hilly. Because of their tilted positioning, water flows through creeks and streams from one place to another, until place one is empty, at which point we have a dry creek bed or stream bed. In the flat wetlands of Louisiana and South Texas, bayous don't dry out.

3. As noted in the Chronicle article, bayous sometimes reverse their flow. Miss Ginger does not know of any rivers that do this. Correct her if she is wrong.

4. Bayous are amazing natural habitats. Because they never dry out, and typically flow slowly, they are safe, stable environments for all sorts of wildlife and flora. The bayous of South Louisiana have fed the Cajun people for centuries!

During the oil boom 60's and 70's, Houston's oil-baron civic leaders faced problems with flooding as they grew and paved the city, creating more runoff than Mother Nature could handle. In an attempt to improve the flow, these "brilliant industrialists" scraped away the trees and grasses, dug away the curves and turns, and paved miles of these bayous into big concrete drainage ditches. Luckily, in the 80's and 90's, as the oil bidness suffered and high tech required more educated workers, civil engineers began using the concept of holding ponds and and reservoirs to retain excess rainfall, and contain it for evaporation, rather then trying to move it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Miss Ginger hopes that someday, environmental groups will take on the project of restoring some of the bayous that have been destroyed, and replacing them with more natural, environmentally sound ways to handle rainwater. A gurl can dream, can't she?!

Garage Sale!

The Krewe had our annual fall garage sale today, and boy, was it pathetic! Oh, we made money, and had fun, and drank bloody marys, and got rid of lots of shit, but there is nothing like a garage sale to lay out in front of the world what a pathetic bunch of overconsuming gluttons we Americans have become! We had our requisite table loads of glass floral vases, baskets, and containers. Tons of mismatched pots and pans, probably replaced by shining, feature-laden new matching sets. Lots of clothes, some overworn, some barely worn. Plenty of retro-technology electronics, and several pieces of rarely-used infomercial exercise equipment. Typical garage sale fare that represents American's disregard for the old "use it up, wear it out" mantra our parents had. We buy the "must have", "everybody's getting", "can't live without" products, and use them until they become outdated technology, are replaced by something more stylish, or simply prove to be more cumbersome than they are worth.

A perfect case in point: the "Tater Twister", by Presto. Miss Ginger has never been to, hosted, or probably even driven past a garage sale that didn't have at least one of these "must have" devices sitting somewhere between the 33 RPM LPS and 8-track tapes... usually positioned near a Mr. Coffee in the most well-merchandised garage sales!

Really, what batterie de cuisine could ever be complete without one of these versatile workhorses! It's useful for so many things, like, making curly fries! Or making curly fries! You can even make curly fries with it! Curly fries are the perfect unicorn feed, and unicorn farmers the world over rejoiced when this quality product came to the American market!

Plus, curly fries are a delicious, healthful way to keep your unicorn, and your family, fit, vital, and full of life!

So next time you're hungry for some delicious curly fries, forget driving to the outer burroughs in search of an Arby's! Just drop by your local garage sale and pick up a Tater Twister! Then, stop at the market to get a big potato and a gallon of Crisco! When you get home, all you have to do is find a pot big enough to hold a gallon of oil and you're all set to make nutritious, delicious curly fries for only about 4 times the price of those at your local fast food outlet!

I wonder why on Earth the Presto Company stopped making these?

Sensible!

Why DO we flush with clean water? Greywater would work just fine!

Miss Ginger's Latest Consumer Products Reviews!

It's been a while since Miss Ginger has been excited enough about a product to bring it to the attention of the GingerSnaps, but, especially since so many of you are pet lovers, here are a couple that she really felt are worth mentioning.

Unless you've been living in a cave you've probably seen the commercials for the Pledge Fabric Sweeper (for Pet Hair.) Now, as you know, Miss Ginger's precious angels have been known to shed a bit, so anything that can simplify the ensuant cleanup would be a welcome addition at Chez Ginger. But does it work? And is it worth the money? Inquiring 'Snaps want to know!

First, dear GingerSnaps, you must know that for the value this product adds to your life, it is CHEAP! Miss G paid about 4.99 for one at her local Kroger- the one on West Gray, where all the cute boys shop and all the gay realtors advertise on the shopping carts.

Anyho, she brought it home to try it out on the infamous "orange chairs", which local 'Snaps know is a danger zone to all things black and nappy! (She means velvet and corduroy, not rugrats!) As all true cat lovers know, a cat's favorite perch color is inversely proportional to the color of it's fur- Shelby's white belly prefers darker hued fabrics, while her brown brother Jackson prefers lighter and whiter shades. With a few little "swish, swish, shwishes" (quite easy for Miss Ginger) the lightweight, non-motorized contraption removed and contained every speck of cat hair, at least as effectively if not better than a full size vacuum cleaner! And best yet, you can keep it handy (like near the remote) so you can whisk up pet hair as it occurs! Any 'Snap who shares their home with any sort of beast should have one, and it definitely earns the coveted 5 lipsticks!

By now, any pet parent worth their kibble has probably tried the Swiffer Sweeper, the electrostatic floor wand that attracts dust and fur and traps it for disposal. Miss G has a love/hate relationship with her Swiffer- bipolar bitch that she is. Yasee, while she loves the way it catches dust and fur, anything larger just kinda gets pushed around in front of the thing, and heaven forbid it actually works it's way up under the pad, where it causes friction and destroys the pleasant glide and takes away the "swiffness" of it all!

Well, those clever engineers at Proctor and Gamble must have heard Miss G's bitching all the way from Cincinnati, so they came up with the Swiffer Sweepervac! This clever gadget is like duct taping a Dust Buster in front of a Swiffer, only way better designed and much prettier! The little vacuum nozzle sucks up the kibble and litter, leaving the pad free to glide the whole unit effortlessly across the floor to catch dust, lint, and fur. At about $40, it's not quite the incredible value represented by the Pledge Fabric Sweeper, and it requires charging and makes a high-pitched whine which sorts negates the "swiffness". For that reason, Miss G holds the Swiffer Sweepervac at 4 lipsticks. Still, it's worth having if you have hard-surfaced floors in your home.

What new products would YOU like for Miss Ginger to review? Leave a comment and let her know!!

World Homeless Day

Today, 10/10/2010, is World Homeless Day, not to be confused with 12/21/2010, which is National Homeless Person's Memorial Day. They may not have a house, but they have 2 special holidays! Apparently someone in Bribane, Australia, thought there were not enough icons floating around on facebook, so they created a one-page static website that has taken facebook by storm. They are encouraging communities to collect corrugated cardboard for recylcing, and to donate the money to local homeless shelters. The irony of this cannot be ignored, dear GingerSnaps!!

All joking aside, homelessness is a problem that Miss Ginger stares at facefirst every day of her life. Her home, in a historic neighborhood that was the edge of town at the turn of the last century, has since been surrounded by freeways and their ensuant overpasses. There is no way to enter or exit Miss G's hood without passing under a freeway, and at every underpass there is the requisite collection of bums and panhandlers. When she works in her office in the downtown store, she waits until after 7pm to arrive, so the custodians will have time to wake up the bums and wash away the urine at the entrances to the store. This is a huge problem in Houston, and Miss G sees it and thinks about it often.

There are really 2 cases of homelessness as Miss G sees it, and society only addresses part of the problem. The "best case homelessness scenario", if there was one, is the random person who is "down on their luck". With today's unfortunate economy these folks are not quite as random, which taxes the system our society has in place to help them. There are lots of ways we as a society attempt to help these folks, with varying degrees of efficiency and success. Ideally, we can provide meals and shelter when their needs are acute, and then assist in helping them "get back on their feet" through co op living arrangements, job assistance, welfare, and a host of other programs, some public, and some charitable. IF (and that's a big IF) we can get these folks directed to the correct programs, and they are able to decipher the rules and coordinate the benefits, these folks can survive their period of homelessness and maintain a position in our society, without having to beg on the streets or live under a bridge. Miss G will heartily support any charitable organization that works to help these folks through their difficult times.

The other part of the homeless population has been failed by society long before they were cast to the street to live the life of the batshit crazy. Many of the beggars on the street are schizophrenic, and really have no idea just how bad their world is. Some are driven to homelessness by their schizophrenic behavior, but Miss Ginger often wonders if others are driven to schizophrenia by their own mind as a way of coping with their situation. Miss G has thought to herself, "if I had to live like that, I would go crazy" and she thinks that exactly what happens- they "go crazy" as a way of coping. Schizoprhenics don't see things for what they are, so perhaps schizophrenia simply helps them cope with the filth, pain, fear, and general ugliness that homelessness brings.

So, society, what do we do with these people? Even professional Psychiatrists disagree on the prognosis for treating these people, but most will agree that some progress can be made IF (another big IF) the patients will accept the treatment. Hence the problem: by definition of the malady, schizophrenics have paranoid, distrusting brains. It's not that they shy away from help: they categorically avoid it, because they don't trust it and think that those trying to administer aid will harm or change them. A caregiver's only hope is to create a bond of trust, which can take months or years, and is sometimes impossible. If that bond can be established, the rehabilitation can take years, and requires almost undivided attention from the caregiver to prevent relapse. The cost of medications, plus the professional and occupational supersvision required to administer them, can run into the 10's of thousands of dollars, per patient!

And there's the quandry, dear readers. We have working people here in the US, with homes and families, who are unable to provide medications and healthcare for their families. It's a struggle for these folks to treat a family member who has a common cold, much less ones who begins to show the disturbing signs of schizophrenia. When these people begin to exhibit antisocial behavior, their family's don't say "get yourself to a doctor", they say "get the hell out of my house, you crazy bitch!" And that, dear friends, is the birth of a bag lady!

Now, I'm not preaching Obamacare as the be all end all end to homelessness- Goddess know there are countries around the world with a much more socialized medical program than Obamacare, and they still have homeless on every street corner in every city! Even if we did have an awesome national healthcare program, that covered mental health issues, and had an effective outreach program to get people to use it, we still would not have solved the issue of the 1,000's of homeless schizophrenics on our streets today.

It comes down to the almighty dollar, and where, as a society, we choose to spend it. I strongly support a system that provides healthcare for all Americans, and hope that the coverage will provide mental health in the package. Miss Ginger doesn't think for a moment that her little blog post will do much to change the homelessness problem in America, much less the world. But if one person reads it, and finds a bit more compassion for our President's best attempt to provide healthcare for all who need it, perhaps it will make a difference.

It's all connected, people- a charitable soul can work miracles they don't even know they are addressing. Search your soul, peeps- are you "paying it forward?"

Sam does Gaga!!

Sam!!

How unfair is it that he got to be cute AND talented?! Everyone should have to pick one or the other!!

Remember the Alamo? Titans? Oil Spill?

How quickly we NIMBY Americans forget! Now that autumn is here, our thoughts turn to pumpkins, and festivals, and football; away from all vestiges of a summer past and forgotten!

Including the largest man-made accidental disaster the world has ever known!

BP's website doesn't address the spill on it home page any longer; they are more focused on their next opportunity to drill, baby, drill! The media talks more about Kim Kardashian's hemlines than they do about the devastation. Yet, for thousands of Gulf Coast workers, life is still in turmoil, and futures are fuzzy and unknown!

Sure, BP maintains that they will "do whatever it takes to make it right". Really, BP? Define "right". Is it "right" to refuse to allow cleanup workers to wear respiratory equipment they provide for themselves, because photos of people wearing such equipment appear "unseemly" in the national media. Is it "right" to spend your efforts sifting through sand to remove tiny tarballs from the beach, while you buy time to allow millions of gallons of oily sludge to settle out of sight to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Is it "right" to spend more time and money in court protecting your bonuses than you spend in the Gulf cleaning up the mess you made?

Oil is completely inert- it does not break down, decay, or disperse. The chemical "dispersant" BP dumped into the waters doesn't "disperse" anything- it simply encapsulate drops of oil, making it heavier than water so it sinks to the ocean floor. There, the oil will recollect at the surface, and slowly entrench itself into the muddy bottom of the Gulf, where it will permanently poison the underwater fields where seaweeds grew to feed the plankton and keep the ocean fresh. With no plankton, there will be no Gulf shrimp. The oyster beds will be permanently marked with oil, and even if the invertebrate inside the shell were pure, the presence of oil on the outside of the shell renders the seafood inside unusable- there's no way to get to the inside without contaminating it with oil from the outside.

21 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, sportsmen and explorers in Alaska still routinely find pockets of oil that have been trapped in the water and ground near the site. And remember: the Valdez disaster was finite- we know exactly how much oil was in that ship, so we know exactly how much it leaked. We also know that BP lied, time and time again, about the amount of oil the blown out well was emitting! Their own containment ships were filling faster than their capacity allowed, yet time and again the media repeated BP's estimates of the damage as the gospel truth.

Never forget, people! Never! The humanity affected by this debacle will never be allowed to! We mustn't forget it, either ! There are lessons to be learned!

Shakira was heera:

and Miss Ginger got to see her!!

It's been a hellacious few weeks for Miss G with 3 back-to-back weeks of travel, and the inevitable finally happened- she totally fucked up her schedule and caused a meltdown!

Many weeks ago she made plans to fly to Berkley this weekend for Zombie Mom's housewarming party, and a chance to meet the darling Mermaids in person. She even booked the ticket.

Then, in a fit of exhaustion, when a friend said "I have extra Shakira tickets this weekend, you wanna go?" she mentally recapped my schedule and said" "Next week, garage sale; week after that, Berkley- sure, let's go."

Then, she got this cryptic comment from Kailyn on facebook. Then, she got an email from Continental asking her to check in for her flight. (flight? what flight? I just landed!) Then, it hit her- she got her weekends all mixed up, and was supposed to be flying to Berkley (vis SF) for Zombie's party. Exhausted and angry,she messaged ZM that she couldn't make it- way too tired to travel this weekend! Then she cancelled the ticket. Then, she went to bed. Sad.

The next day was a bit better- at least Shakira was fun, even from the nosebleed seats. From that distance, she couldn't help but think that, once she sweated her makeup off, Shakira looked very much like Jackie Warner, if Jackie had long hair. It was hard to find photos of Shak with no makeup, or Jackie with long hair, for that matter. But of course, Miss G wouldn't let you down, so here it is:

It's not like you're going to mix them up at the airport, and maybe it's more like an older sister than a twin, but don't you think there is a striking resemblance?

Anyway, ZM, I'm sorry I'm gonna miss the party, but I'll make it to visit soon! (When does earthquake season end?!)

GingerCare!

Screw ObamaCare... Miss Ginger has decided to take it one step further! It's the insurance plan of the future, and I KNOW it will work!!!

Not only do we provide insurance on a sliding scale for everyone who can't afford it, but we require the companies who provide it, as well as all insurance companies, to bundle health insurance AND life insurance into one package!! That way, it's in their vested interest to keep you alive and healthy!!

Think about it: under the GingerCare plan:

1. All prescriptions would cost the same! If the insurance company charged more for some scripts, you might not take them. Then you might die, and they'd have to pay out a death benefit!

2. You could see a doctor whenever you wanted! Heaven forbid they brushed off your claim of chest pains as "indigestion!" That heart attack would cost them too much!

3. You could stay in the hospital until you are well! No more rushing people home the day of their surgery to risk infection, injury, or ruptured sutures! It would be much more cost effective to keep you close at hand so they can make sure you don't go home and die on them!

We certainly wouldn't have to deal with ridiculous bullshit like restricted formularies, preauthorizations, advance notification, primary care referrals, etc., etc., etc.!!

C'mon, Barack: if we're gonna do this, let's do it right!!

Conflict, Turmoil, Hate, and more...

There are many things in this world that Miss G cannot wrap her tiny little brain around. Lightning. Internal combustion engines. Airplanes. She just can't figure out how those things work!

She also can't wrap her tiny little brain around hate. She just doesn't get it. Judgement? Sure, that's out there, and there will always be those who judge. Apathy? It's epidemic in this country, and probably always will be because no one cares enough to fix it! (Budomp- bomp! Ching! I'm here all week, folks!) Intolerance? If those who claim to be intolerant would put use avoidance to alleviate the need to tolerate, than there's no real harm there. But hate- Miss Ginger just doesn't get it! What's the motivation to put so much energy and emotion behind something you don't like?! Why do you even care?!

It starts during childhood, as demonstrated by the recent death of a local student, Asher Brown, here in the Houston area. This young man, barely past puberty, was forced into dealing with a lifestyle decision that many men don't make until they are old and grey! Bullied by other students, he took his own life rather than face the daily hatred of other students. Those students weren't born as hatemongers- like all humans, they were born with pure souls and the love of humanity in their tiny little hearts. But someone, somewhere, taught them that hate was an acceptable way of life. They learn ways to express hatred that were accepted; tolerated; perhaps even condoned.

Now, there is huge debate between the parents of the child and the school district where this bullying happened. There's another thing around which Miss G can't wrap her tiny little brain. A mother lost a child in a hideous, senseless misfortune. The child shot himself- a bloody death, in this woman's own home. Why on Mother Earth would she make up a story about reporting bullying and violence to the school authorities if she hadn't? What grieving mother would put herself in the middle of that senseless debate if she didn't have to? How could anyone question the integrity of a grieving mother?!

And why in the name of all things Holy would a school system devise a system that could allow a complaint to go uninvestigated?! CyFair ISD is well-known in these parts as one of the best of the public school districts. People actually pay a premium for their matchy little houses made of ticky-tacky so they can send their children to these schools. Let's say there were one hate-monging teagabber working in a Principal's office. How could they circumvent a well-devised system of checks and balances designed to ensure the safety of all the students in the building?! It just doesn't make sense!

Where do people learn this hate? Do their parents teach it to them at home? Outside of Cypress Fairbanks, are they learning it in school? Maybe it's church! "God-fearing" Christians teach their kids to worship every Sunday. There's another one Miss G can't fathom: why would anyone want to worship something they feared? They are taught this by "Christian" "leaders" like "bishop" eddie long (Miss Ginger refuses to honor that douchenozzle with capital letters!) Besides, judging from these photos, he will probably be known in prison as Bishop Schlong! This money-grubbing swindler spent millions of other people's dollars to build an enormous mega-church in Atlanta. Money he bilked from innocent people by promising to teach their children the fundamentals of Christianity. Now, Miss G is by no means a devout churchgoer, but she's pretty sure the foundation of Christ's worship is not based on sodomy, analingus, and fellatio. How do we expect his "followers" to process and rationalize the mockery he has made of their innocent, naive faith? No doubt for some of them, this will lead to feelings of hate, and we've already covered how confusing and mindless that all seems!

Every adult with respect for mankind must rise above hatred in any way they can! Saying "I won't tolerate hate" is kind of like say "I won't ask if you won't tell"... It's like burying our head in the sand! We must actively seek it out, challenge it, and prevent it's spread. Hate has become viral- love is the antivirus!!

I LOVE the example Wanda Sykes shows in this video: