Jean Rubin

Trash Tokens

Now we all know some fans go through celebrity garbage for tokens of their favorite surgically-enhanced, non-talented blond starlets and identity thieves think that’s a good source of information (so if you’re not shredding, start now!), but now we have the threat of microchips in our garbage! Stress! In London, the high-end of a nanny-state, the local governments have installed 2.6 million microchips in people’s garbage to find out if they are recycling.

I knew it! My mother was right! There are people looking in our garbage! Even paranoid old ladies speak the truth sometimes. “Jean, always wrap your q-tips in a tissue before you throw them away.” Why? So people won’t know there was wax in my ears? Listen, folks, if they’re using this new surveillance to monitor green activity, we’re all in trouble. The “pay as you throw” policy for rubbish is voluntary but do you really want someone evaluating your garbage? And charging you if you didn’t re-cycle correctly? Aren’t you stressed out enough?

From the British invasion of rock music to mini-skirts, whatever starts there comes here. I knew the Garbage Police were going to show up sometime. I just didn’t know when. I never would have suspected it would be under an environmental disguise. And I can’t wait to see what they’re wearing. Maybe my mother should dress them in green polyester and stacked heel silver boots.

Our State has Nuttier Politicians Than Yours

The people representing the state of Arizona are a constant source of entertainment until you realize that they are crazy and can influence your life. Our latest gaffe from Trent Franks, a U.S. Representative who was a protege of impeached, racist-remarking, impeached Governor Evan Mecham, is a doozy.

What could be said that would cause enough outrage that E.J. Montini made it to the front page of the local section of our newspaper as a big headline? What could get my mother to call me at 7 AM and want to move out of state? Okay, maybe that’s not a bad idea, but I’d be the one having to pack her up all over again with her ugly gold barrel chair and eat ten more senior lunches at assisted living facilities.

Trent Franks equates abortion with slavery. No matter what you think about the topic of terminating a pregnancy, do you know any sane people who think a family-planning decision is equal to the mistreatment and enslavement of an entire people? I cannot make this up. They’re getting crazier and crazier here. I’m waiting for the next nut who claims they can tell your political preferences from your front lawn cactus arrangement. The realization that I’m living in a place with these kind of unbridled nut cases representing me gives me enough stress to eat two warm, slightly melted chocolate lava cakes. Myself.

A Desert Brand of Nut

Now I’ve been concerned about some of our state legislators for years. Some of my favorite legislation was the representative who wanted to ban co-ed dorms at all state universities. Little late for that. Or the woman who brought a bill that linked abortion with breast cancer without any scientific information. But it gets better than that. After a recent editorial from snowbirds who said they won’t be coming back because they ran into so many “birthers” here, I had to take a serious examination of our “kook” factor.

We’re scored very high on the list. Columnist Laurie Roberts has made an excellent case for taxing some of our better ideas to kill tourism and keep major corporations from moving their headquarters here. There is a fictional Flora Beaudreaux who expresses some of the viewpoints of our very own legislators like representative Judy Burges of Skull Valley who supports the “birthers,” a nut-case group that are convinced our president was really born in Kenya. What to do about this? Waste the legislature’s time (we can’t balance the budget and they’re closing state parks) with bill 2441 which requires presidential candidates to show their birth certificate before they can be included on Arizona’s ballot?

But my favorite is Russell Pearce who passed bills to get flags in every classroom with out any funding, requiring photo IDs to be shown at voting polls (never mind the elderly who no longer have driver’s licenses like my mother, thank God!) and his latest feat, to have the Ten Commandments installed at the Capitol. Never mind separation of church and state and the poverty in his district. We need to focus on inconsequential matters so Maury can yell at the newspaper and write Letters to the Editor, which gives me stress.

Fighting Stewardesses

You might not have heard of Pinnacle Airlines but you’ll think about booking with them in the future. It’s enough that passengers want to explode their shoes or light their underwear, but now we have to be stressed about nasty flight attendants. We don’t know the reason for the altercation but apparently two sassy stewardesses got into a verbal disagreement (who teased their hair higher? why Lee Press-On nails don’t last?) that caused the pilot to  return to the gate in Rochester, New York instead of landing in Atlanta. Would you be upset if your were a passenger? There’s a high nut factor in the air. I can’t make this up.

Stress Relief, Scottsdale Style

Why do baby boomers flock to the spa? Stress relief, of course! In this time of taxes, 24-hour news cycles, wars, poverty and congressional gridlock, it makes sense to have your body pushed, pummeled and stroked. You can even leave a few shades darker because some have tanning beds that measure a person’s UV light sensitivity to adjust the output of rays. I have about as much interest in that as a Brazilian wax. My mother says, “Jean, spend more time on yourself. And don’t forget to pick up my prescriptions, take me to the podiatrist and come over to look for my silver stacked heels.”

Glee and April love the spa. They hoodwinked me for a style intervention after an explicit exercise class at one of Scottsdale’s finest spas. It involved the suggestive “Bad Kitty” that involved rolling around on the floor. If I can get down there again, Maury would be impressed. I’d also have a lot of stress. They insisted on treating me to a reflexology/facial with a lavender loofah scrub. I don’t know what they were doing to me but I blended into mush. I didn’t learn until later that they were softening me up for  a make-over. I don’t know what’s wrong with wearing two fuzzy bunches on either side of my head. Why can’t Princess Leia shop for lettuce wraps?

Some of the spas have specials where you sign up for a membership fee which obligates you to go every month. Not that it’s  a bad thing. But what I want to know how corporations justify  a day of pampering as Team Building.  Even church groups are using this as an activity. And this connects to a religious experience  how?

At any rate, when I came home after the prickly pear sugar scrub with jojoba body butter rub, Amber, our discerning golden retriever, licked my legs raw. Maury wanted to know if he could nibble my elbow.

Puppets with Cleavage

In Colorado Springs, a city more conservative than Scottsdale which allows for funny business in all manners and forms, an advertising agency banned posters at bus shelters because “Avenue Q”, a touring production of the Broadway show, had a fuzzy pink puppet with cleavage. Personally, I thought of April in her angora V-neck sweater. With all that’s happening in the world, who would take the time to pick on a puppet? The more I think about it the more stress I’m getting? Puppets? On a poster? These people need to turn off Glenn Beck and find a sand box. I cannot make this up.