Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

2012 Best in Show

 

A Pekingese named Malachy won Best in Show

at the 136th annual Westminster Kennel Club.

The 4-year-old puff ball won his 115th overall best in show title.

Really?  The Pekingese?

DISCUSS.

 

Heart Attack

At 7:19 EST this morning, Flannista got a call from her father with the news that my mother had had a heart attack. He called from his car on the way to the hospital. He had no information other than that.

Ten minutes ago, my oldest sister called to tell me that my mother was out of emergency and in a hospital room where she, according to my sister, "sounded feisty" -- my sister's way of saying my mother was pissed to be there.  Tests are being run, etc., but apparently my mother had "decades of untreated high blood pressure" which has damaged her heart.  She never went to the doctor.  My father had a very serious heart attack in 2004 and had quintuple by-pass surgery. None of us knew that my mother also had heart disease.

She's alive.  I'll keep you posted and would covet your prayers.

2012 Golden Globes

 

The Sassistas! are watching the Golden Globes Awards!

Debris

According to this morning's Washington Post: 

A 12,500-pound decommissioned satellite that was lazily falling toward the Earth over the past two days finally came down around midnight Friday, NASA said early Saturday.

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. Friday and 1:09 a.m. Saturday, NASA said in an update on its website. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite penetrated the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, the agency said. It is not yet known when exactly the satellite hit Earth, and whether it ended up in water or on land, NASA said.

The Sassistas! don't think it's just a coincidence that just yesterday, Flannista discovered the object pictured below in the middle of an intersection here in Sassista!Land East. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Confrontation

BREAKING NEWS SASS!

The Sassistas! learned late last week that an anti-gay marriage group (predominately African American) in our state received a permit to march in our annual Labor Day Parade. Via email and the phone, scores of us have discussed how best to confront/communicate with this group today. The parade starts at 10 a.m. EST.  Our plan is to turn our backs on the group and then to join the Greenbelt Pride contingent marching in the parade.  We will update you in a few hours. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

In the meantime, think about what you would do.

Earthquake!

AT APPROXIMATELY 1:51 PM TODAY, SASSISTALAND EAST EXPERIENCED

A 5.8-6.0 EARTHQUAKE.  FOLLOWING ARE PHOTOS OF FLANN'S HOUSE!

AND IN THE CATEGORY OF WE CAN'T MAKE UP THIS SH!T, LOOK 

WHERE FLANN'S CONDOLEEZZA RICE ACTION FIGURE LANDED!

Catty Birthday!

THIS JUST IN!

MSCAT news anchors, Scout and Jem report to the world that tomorrow is

WESTSISTA'S GOLDEN BIRTHDAY!

The President of the United States has issued a proclamation that

the sassosphere spend the next two days marking the occasion with

stories, news, links to videos, photos of cats, cats, cats

and their shenanigans!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WESTSISTA!

Kindness

 

Yesterday at 1:40 pm, Flannista learned from her Big Sister that our 55-year-old, next-to-youngest sister has malignant thyroid cancer that has spread to her lymph nodes under her right arm pit. This sister first noticed a lump near her Adam's apple three years ago in April 2008.  "But as mom taught us," she said when I called yesterday to talk to her for the first time since the infamous August 2008 family reunion, "mind over matter. I probably should have gone to a medical doctor sooner."  A shaman, my sister had resorted instead to the counsel of her alternative, homeopathic practitioner six months ago when she had so much pain she could barely move. Not that there's anything wrong with that except the fact that my sister now has malignant cancer.  I want so much to be open-minded, but forgive me, I can't be.

Fuck cancer.

I am close to being unmoored.  Gwendolyn.  My mother's Parkinson's. Tenuous job situation . . . .

This sister was my favorite childhood companion.  To Johnny DeCola's (my neighborhood playmate) Tarzan, I was Jane and this sister was Cheetah.  To my "Girl from "U.N.C.L.E." April Dancer, this sister was Noel Harrison's, "Mark Slate."  To my "Mission: Impossible" Cinnamon Carter, she was Martin Landau's, "Rollin Hand".

Enough, I want to say.  But I don't have that luxury.  None of us do.  As this sister said to me yesterday, "The human experience is not easy.  It's a tough job, but it is well worth it."  But, sweet Jesus, what a crap shoot it is, too.

As most of you know, I've had some profound differences with this sister regarding her racism.  This, of course, no longer seems to matter.  This past Saturday afternoon -- trying to make sense of Gwendolyn's condition -- I watched the HBO production of "Wit," a play about a renowned professor of English who has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.  Toward the end of her life, when her scholarship fails her, this professor says:

Now is not the time for verbal swordplay, for unlikely flights of imagination and wildly shifting perspectives, for metaphysical conceit, for wit.

And nothing could be worse than a detailed scholarly analysis.  Erudition. Interpretation. Complication.

Now is a time for simplicity.  Now is a time for, dare I say it, kindness.

Now is a time for kindness.  Now is a time for kindness. Now is a time for kindness.

Now is a time for kindness.

Why can't I stop typing it?

EDITOR'S NOTE: The photo in this post is the back of a denim vest owned by Flannista. To honor her second youngest sister's 50th birthday, Flannista sent her a blanket with this image on it from the Museum of Native American History.  "It has been a powerful healing blanket" this sister said yesterday.

Justice Done

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama announced.

In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered Bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader who had eluded them for nearly a decade. American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head. He was later buried at sea.

FROM BABYSIS AT 12:23 A.M. THIS MORNING (in yesterday's sass stream):

Bin Laden has just attained sainthood in that we can call him dearly departed.

 

Holy Matrimony!

Cor blimey, chaps and lassies!

It's the Sassistas! in London on our way to the Royal wedding!

As you can see, Matissta just tossed her disguise toward Kate

(who, God bless her, will need it after today) . . .

and Flannista is serving as a Royal carriage footsista

decked out in her Royal cowboy hat!

Stayed tuned today for our special Royal wedding sass!