Nog's Newest Friend

Many longtime readers of TFBOMGG know that the Queen's Outside Kitty, Nog, has quite a menagerie of critter friends that come to dine with him on a regular basis.  Birds in the morning, possums at night, and squirrels throughout the afternoon.

Recently, we've seen a new friend among Nog's squirrelfriends, a solid black fellow, just like Nog!  Queen G is not sure about other parts of the country, but around here, squirrels are pretty much grey,  so when you see one that's a different color, it's pretty noticeable.  

Of course, the most frequent visitors are given names, so this little black guy has been dubbed "Herman", after Herman Cain, the squirreliest black guy we could think of!

That's Radiculus!

Lot's been going on in GingerLand, folks, so the Queen's gonna catch you up!  

Great progress was being made on the gown for the Royal Return, with plenteous help from the Queen's able bodied assistant!  It's like that girl's claws are scissors, I'll tell you! As you can see, she loves to sew!


Things were going swimmingly there for a while, with satin and fur falling together beautifully!  (Not Shelby's fur... the fur that goes on the bottom of the gown!)


Anyho,  about Wednesday a week ago,  the Queen woke up "down in the back", as she often does.  


Only this time it was much different. Worse. much worse.  And shooting. It often shoots, but this time, it was like someone try to steal her leg by prying it off at the hip with a screw driver!  




Dr. Ken has only been able to relieve it slightly, and for a short term.  It was so bad the the Queen resorted to narcotics at night in order to sleep, but vicodin makes her too sleepy to take it during the day, so she'd down a few advils and suffer through it. After a few visits with no results, Dr. Ken said those words our Royal has been dreading:  "it's time for an MRI".


Let me tell you, those things are no walk in the park!  Your back is already killing you, and they put you on this hard table and slide you into this tiny hole barely big enough for your leg!  You know these things must be designed and built in Asia because a normal-sized American barely fits inside!

I had visions of my favorite Bunny Sister having to bring one of his hotties  Christopher Robin to pull me out!


Anyway, once they get you wedged in there, the work crews get busy, jackhammering and drilling and banging out the image. From the noise the thing makes, your would think they are hammering out a picture of your insides on stone tablets!




It will take about a week for the dust to settle and the images to be ready.  Dr. Ken predicts he will find degeneration or prolapse between L4 and L5, which is causing "Lumbar Radiculitis", more commonly know as "sciatica".  


Meanwhile,  sewing had come to a complete halt- until today.  At the worst, it was impossible to find a comfortable position- sitting, standing, or lying down, hence the vicodin.  As some of the therapy has taken effect, the pain is not as intense, and the Queen has been able to return to the sewing machine and computer, hence this update.


Thank goodness Boy G is on vacation from work next week, so he can help the Queen get all this sewing finished before the big deadline of February 11th!  

Happy Caturday!

Another Caturday at "the Sweatshop" for Princess Shelby!

Queen Ginger Gets the Sadz.....

when she learns that the TV world's greatest Southern chef is living with type 2 diabetes!

Queen Ginger can't help but love Paula Deen!  She reminds the Queen SO MUCH of her dearly departed Momma G in so many ways!  Just not so much the blue eyeshadow part!

Momma G kept her hair naturally white, like Paula.  Momma G kept a coffee can of bacon grease on the kitchen counter.  Momma G knew you can't make divinity when it's raining.  And Momma G had type 2 diabetes.


And Momma G could cook up some of the best Southern dishes you ever laid a lip on!
















Queen G has blogged about diabetes before,  for that nasty disease has taken away too many people (and critters!) that she loved, and it's knocking' at her back door, as well!


The haters (and by haters I mean that asstit Anthony Boredom) have already started ragging on Paula, saying she should have revealed her diagnosis sooner, and that it's "in bad taste" for her to write cookbooks and host television programs heralding her delicious, if not someone unhealthy, cuisine while suffering from a disease likely caused by those foods!


Paula, in her own defense, claims that she never meant for anyone to eat her decadent specialties 365 days a year, which sounds fair, to this rather biased royal.  Growing up in the South, it's not like we had a pecan pie every weekend, or fried shrimp once a month to celebrate payday! Think about it, people: the traditions of the South are rural. In the "old days" in the most of the rural South, there wasn't a hell of a lot to do, so people celebrated just about anything they could justify, and cooked special meals whenever they had the opportunity to get together with others,which really wasn't that often! To this day, Southern cooks "fix" their best recipes for visitors, and calories be damned when there's company coming!


Additionally, there's no proof that the foods "caused" her diabetes.  While diet may play a part, and must be controlled to managed the disease, heredity and genetics could cause a person with the healthiest diet on earth to contract type 2 diabetes.


When Daddy G was first diagnosed with heart disease back in the 70's, it was hard for Momma G to part with her grease can, and her garlic salt, and her deep fryer- but she did it- not just for Daddy G, but for all of us.  She learned to use olive oil instead of bacon grease;  a "teflon pan" instead of an iron skillet; and the oven instead of a deep fryer.  It may have been too little, too late, but she educated herself with fervor to learn what was rapidly being revealed back then about heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and the like.


We still got fried shrimp on our birthdays, and maybe a pecan pie at Thanksgiving, but we also learned to enjoy grilled chicken, broiled fish, and boiled shrimp.  Just as, I'm sure, Paula's family does on a day to day basis!


So, go to hell, haters!!  Paula is good people, and she makes good food, the traditional way.  If that's a bad thing, Anthony Boredom, than you will have to prove it to me! Because I think Paula is a saint, and I hope someday, when her time on earth is done,  she and Momma G have a chance to whomp up a big ole batch of fried shrimp together! I can hear their laughter in the kitchen from here!

A New Post From Princess Shelby...

We STILL need ONE MORE!

Don't ANY of you people have friends?!

Two Can Be the Loneliest Number!

So, here's the deal:  Queen Ginger has been doing this little blog for several years now, starting it back when she was just a princess!  It's never been about "being a blogger" or "standing for" anything, it's just a little corner of the interwebz where a drag queen can be herself, speak her mind, have some fun, and make a few friends along the way. And oh, what friends she's made! Her blog friends, like her friends in life, are not huge in numbers, but they are great, like-minded people that she's thrilled to have in her life!

Some, she's met in person, like her dear, dear sister David Dust, along with crazy Cousin Maddie!  On the west coast, she's got the Mermaid Momma, Creative Kailyn, and Fightin' Mad Mary!  And covering the middle of the country, Nutwood Beth and Bucko.   The more she thinks, the more she realizes she's met!  Chicago Dan, and everyone's 2nd favorite drag queen, Amber LeMay.  DJ Howard. Is she forgetting anyone? Oh, Sissy Mark! Who else....? 

And there's still more to meet!  Tug, and Auntie Flame, for sure!  Smalltown Bob, and Mr. and Mrs. Miss Alaineous! The world is filled with GingerSnaps, and Queen G wants to meet them all!  She's cooking up a few little round-ups around the country this spring, but tentatively we are looking at the 2nd weekend of Jazzfest in NOLA, the week after Easter in NYC, and a jaunt to the west coast sometime in May.  Any takers?

Meanwhile, let's reel things back in to the point of this post!  While Queen Ginger is all about quality, not quantity, she has realized that over these years, she has collected 98 wonderful, registered, card-carrying GingerSnaps, and for that she is truly grateful!  But, she also realizes, this box is a couple of 'snaps shy of full!  Wouldn't it be great to have an even 100?  

She only needs 2 more!!  C'mon, folks! If you've been reading, but you're not following, do a girl a favorite and set up a free google account so you can be an official "GingerSnap!" And, if you've got like-minded friends who might enjoy kicking back a few pinot grigios with the world's most entertaining drag queen, send 'em a link!  The world can only be a more FABULOUS place for it!

Random Musings from Big Pink Ginger!

#1- "Pink" makes an excellent party theme!

#2- Give a drag queen a microphone and she never shuts up.                                             #3- Drag queens don't really need microphones!

#4- EVERYONE looks better dressed in pink, with pink lighting.

#5- Corrugated cardboard soaked in used cooking oil makes excellent chimney fuel. It burns all night. Trust!

Project Runway All-Stars- The Queen Opines1

The long awaited (and FLAWLESSLY edited!) PRAS began with a bang last night, and we discovered that the producers have replaced Tim and Heidi as mentor and host! 


Joanna Coles is certainly no Tim Gunn.  She seemed to offer more snark and sarcasm than advice and support, which one would think I would enjoy, but I didn't.  The fact that Tim is so lovable is what makes him, well, lovable.  Watching Joanna is like having to kiss your aunt... on the lips. There's just nothing there, and it just seems wrong!


















Tom and Lorenzo named the new hostess "Schmeidi" on twitter.... I think it fits her! Honestly, the Queen doesn't even know her real name to google a picture, so you'll have to look it up on the website if you must know! (She forever will be "Schmeidi" to me!)  That dress she wore for the fashion show looked like it had an entire kindergarten's worth of half-sucked lifesavers stuck all over it. A little birdie told me it's a Mizrahi. Oops!


Speaking of Mizrahi, Queen G has decided that Michael Kors and Isaac Mizrable are pretty much interchangeable.


 Put a mannequin in a black suit and pop on a crazy black wig and bad shoes: Voila! You have Isaac. Pluck off the wig, spray it orange, and add black aviators and boom- it's Michael.  Actually, Isaac's brand of snark and commentary does seem gentler and more sincere! 















As for the contestants, no surprises there, including the first loser.  I remember Elisa being a freak, but she seems even more over the top freaky than her first season.  Perhaps the drugs have had time to rot more brain cells.


Luckily, the contestants are entertaining enough to make up for the lack of sparkle from JC and Schmeidi.  The first episode was definitely captivating enough to keep me watching, and probably making catty comments weekly right here on this blog!  Keep watching! 

WTF is It?!

Not JUST a hoop skirt, dear DD!!

It's a pannier, an 18th century petticoat worn in the times of Marie Antionette to show the details and embellishments of an elaborate skirt. This motherfucker has consumed the Queens life for the last several months, and she is QUITE pleased to be finished with it, at last!

The inability to find a pattern , especially in the required "jumbo petite" is just the beginning of the difficulties!  In ancient times, they were made of linen and whalebone.  Have you GingerSnaps SEEN the price of whalebone lately, if you can find it at all? Joking aside, the polyester boning sold in fabric stores wouldn't begin to hold the structure of a hoop skirt this large, so the clever Queen found rolls and lengths of sprinkler pipe at the Home Depot that would provide the rigidity, flexibility, and light weight that the project required.  Muslin is more practical than linen for something that's not to be seen, and trust, it breaks the Queen's heart that she has worked so long and hard on something that is to be covered up!  Without a pattern, there was a lot of trial and error, cutting and recutting, and shoving and unshoving of those pipes so the whole thing could go through the machine!  But now that's it's done, Queen Ginger couldn't be happier!  It hangs straight and floats like a cloud, and at almost 9 feet from port to starboard, that's a feat in itself!

The whole thing will be covered in a gorgeous gown that Queen G has on one short month to create!  Wish her luck- she's going to need it! And, if postings are light for a while, you'll know why! But if you can't stand another day with the Queen's snarky wit and humor, just check her out on Facebook- that's where you can usually find her, when she's not at the sewing machine!