Irritating Irritants

Phew! I sure will be glad when Fall gets here and things begin to cool off, including little old me.  It seems everything irritates me lately.  I'm blaming the hot weather and not my advanced age.

When I retired, I stopped setting the alarm, except for the days I needed to get up early to go to the lab for blood work or when I wanted to get up early to go to my daughter's house, an eight hour drive. "I'll do whatever I want, whenever I want. No more daily schedules!" I gloated.

After a while, though, I fell into a daily routine of sorts.  Up around 8:30 a.m., coffee and roll, watch Matlock reruns, then the view. Then, I'd read or get on the computer, or even nap a little, keeping the TV on just for the noise. I can do more than one thing at a time. It's called multitasking.  I have skillz.

I usually have H&G or the Food Network on during the day because they don't require half a brain to watch. However, this summer has been a little different. This summer certain people on TV have started driving me crazy (Jay would tell you that it's not a drive, but a short putt.) Their little idiosyncrasies are getting to me, starting with the women on The View. Whoopi is OK, but Joy gets a bit obsessed with news stories like the Casey Anthony trial. At least, she's funny, though. I'm tired of Barbara and her self-promotion and her talking through a pucker.  Elisabeth is just clueless and shrill and needs to learn how to spell her first name. If Sherri (sp?)  doesn't hurry up and get married, I may just scream. Her wedding is shaping up to rival the World's Fair, only tasteless, and we are kept abreast of every tiny detail of this three-ring circus. Note to Sherri: You can CLAIM to be a born-again virgin all you want, but you can't un-ring that bell if you talk from now until doomsday, which you seem to think will occur sometime in 2012.

If I have to watch another greedy couple looking for more house than they can afford on House Hunters, it will be too soon. And, I don't want to hear wifey say, while gazing into a walk-in closet bigger than my whole apartment, "Well, I think it will fit all my stuff, sweetums, but where will you put your clothes?  Yuk, yuk, yuk. And, by the way, your clothes will fit in the closet, the closet will not fit your clothes.

Most of the folks who are getting on my last nerve, though, are on the Food Network, notably Rachael Ray, with her constant references to "E.V.O.O.," "Sammis" and "Stoups." A little bit of Rachael goes a long way with me, as does Guy Fieri. Question: If you took away Guy's red bell peppers, could he cook at all?

Last, and possibly least, there's Paula Deen, Y'awl. Just give her a "spatchler" and some "pap-a-rika and she's ready to cook.  Hey, Paul, it's pronounced "peCANS" not "PEE-cans" and, try to tone down that laugh. If I wanted to watch Hee-Haw, I would.

OK. See what I mean?  It's the heat, I tell you. right after the first cold snap next Fall, Paula will once again be a fun-loving, bawdy Southern gal and Guy will, mercifully,  hit the road. Rachael will be kinda cute, again, maybe.

And, on The View, Sherri will be safely married and looking forward to her next baby and we'll be regaled daily with discussions of her morning sickness and treated to updated ultra-sound photos. Barbara will still be touting her big interview, probably with the Oslo shooter and Elisabeth? Well, she'll still be an idiot.

Until Fall, I'll be here every few days, all hot and bothered about something.

Stay tuned.