We’re eight days into the year and Bag Lady is already adrift, asking where the time has gone — largely due to the lack of a 2021 calendar — while simultaneously needing to make time for insurrection distractions.
Oh, 2021.
Let’s get distracted together.
There is this one bad taxidermy calendar . . .
That I found on Amazon called “Taxidermy disasters,” which is, well, spoiler alert, pretty cringy/ironic. Also discovered: a genre of defecating animal calendars that I wish I was making up.
With no calendar store pop-up shop to leisurely stroll through and nothing online offering immediate appeal, do I roll the dice, order oil and use whatever the oilman brings me? (Which in past years, has been something animal/nature-adjacent?) Do I walk into my local retailer and grab whatever I see first, even if it’s JoJo Siwa-y?
What to do???
I know, let’s watch “Karate Kid”!
AP File Photo
Or “Cobra Kai,” as we’re calling it these days. Season 3 dropped on Netflix on Jan. 1 and it’s a 2021 gift of cheese, high kicks and 1980s nostalgia, set a few decades after the “Karate Kid” films left off. Bag Lady is Team Johnny (and actor William Zabka) all day long.
This month we’re also looking at new seasons of “Married at First Sight,” BL and Shopping Siren’s favorite train wreck, as well as “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” A nearly embarrassing wealth of viewing.
And if drag queens, disastrous arranged marriages and karate are not your thing — I cannot relate, but there may be some out there — Mr. Bag Lady and I have recently fallen under the spell of “Escape to the Chateau.” The reality show follows an English couple who purchased a semi-decrepit French chateau for less than $400,000 and are now on a quest to restore it/make it a wedding venue/paint as many stripes in as many rooms as possible. They have a lot of Maine do-it-yourself pluck, aren’t afraid to bicker and tease, and it’s easy to find yourself immediately rooting for them.
Also, while gorgeous, the castle is such. a. project. that it makes you feel a little better about a peeling bit of paint or that broken doorbell you’ve been meaning to replace. (Ahem, Mr. Bag Lady.) So there’s that.
Bag Cat Update!
Her Julie Award-winning, fancy pants ScoopFree by PetSafe top-entry litter box hit 999 on the automated, self-cleaning counter on Jan. 2, which felt satisfyingly symbolic, rolling over to “1” to start the new year.
And speaking of Bag Cat, I’ve been trimming her nails myself for months with Zen Clipper’s pet nail trimmers, this month graduating to a new size, and wish someone had recommended them to me sooner. They’re a bit like scissors with different hole sizes in the end to stick claws through and quickly snip.
She basically loves it! Well . . . maybe love is overstating it a little, but with remote work, no one is there to see the scratches on my arms and legs, plus, the house’s trim work thanks me.
Because seriously, she does love to lean her considerable mass into the edge of the door frames, reach for the sky and spring up in a door-trim hug, running her claws down the trim as she falls back to earth. It’s so cute! . . . OK, actually, it’s so #@&^#! maddening, destructive and maybe-we’ll-never-own-another-cat-ish. But maybe it’s revenge for making her squeeze into that top-entry box . . .
Lastly, on to happier things like:
The best broccoli-related feud EVER
If you have not yet heard performer Lubalin’s “Turning Internet Drama Into Songs Part 2,” get thee to YouTube, clear out the room (there’s adult language) and listen to the best recipe-stealing drama set to music EVER, based on an actual text thread of actual ladies actually arguing over a broccoli casserole that had to be be amazing, because damn, they are BIT-TER. It’s amazing. And I can’t stop listening — or, for that matter, side-eyeing the cat. Or saying, “OMG, he was in the original movie! What has that actor done in the last, like, 30 years?!”
I’ll stop as soon as I know what day it is.
Bag Lady’s true identity is protected by a pair of stylish, sweater-wearing Doberman pinschers (who are also Team Johnny) and the customer service counter at the Sun Journal. You can reach her at baglady@sunjournal.com.
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