Yesterday June and I paid a visit to our town’s latest confectionary offering, a premium frozen yogurt outlet called Sweet Frog.  It reminded me of Pinkberry, the “fro-yo” emporium located in trendy urban areas like West Hollywood and Soho that tends to attract a lot of lithe, lean women wearing Lululemon tops and carrying yoga mats.   Sweet Frog, on the other hand, is adjacent to a Subway in a gas station selling tall boys and rifle magazines with a life size horse out front.

Despite the incongruous location (fro-yo and rifle magazines?), Sweet Frog is a hit.  We live in a town where, until now, there was nowhere for a female to get her Girl Food fix.  I define Girl Food as any purportedly low-fat, low-cal, “healthy” food that fosters the illusion you can eat a ton of it and not gain weight.  Frozen yogurt, low-fat muffins, vanilla rice milk, fat free cookies, even egg white omelets and quiche fall under this category (the latter two, because most men wouldn’t be caught dead eating it).

Sure enough, when June and I walked in, every table was full of women — attractive, healthy co-eds decked out in workout wear like they’d just come from the gym and were now rewarding themselves with vats of swirly dessert studded with chopped Snickers and pulverized malt balls.  But it’s okay ’cause frozen yogurt is healthy, see?  This is the Girl Food mindset in action.

The business model behind Sweet Frog is pretty brilliant since it’s all do-it-yourself.  You select the size of bowl you want, which appeared to range from large to drum-size, then swirl your own treat from one of four to five dispensaries lining the wall.  Flavors range from New York Cheesecake to Cappucino to Mango, and you can mix as many flavors as you want.

June and I dispensed ourselves a “small” serving of peanut butter and macademia.

The DIY toppings bar is equipped with a handy sneeze guard like you find at the Golden Corral.  The bar, which extends from the dispensaries to the cash register, is organized by health — it begins with bright rainbow colors (chopped berries and fruit)

and ends in a palette of brown; crushed Oreos and Butterfinger dust.

The flow of the toppings bar is designed to make you load up.   There’s no reason to refuse blueberries and strawberries ’cause they’re so healthy.  And then you reward yourself for making such healthy choices by dumping on a handful of smashed  Kit Kat bars near the cash register.  Again, Girl Food in action.

Cost is determined by weight. This small serving with three toppings cost $4.50…which isn’t that outrageous, until you consider that  a bucket size bowl must set you back $7-$12.  Herein lies the genius of the business model — you have no idea how much it costs until it’s too late.   And a good percentage of the ladies in there seemed to be super sizing it because, hewing to Girl Food logic, frozen yogurt is healthy, therefore it’s okay to eat your weight of it.

June and I enjoyed our dessert, though I will say I thought it lacked real yogurt’s (or even Pinkberry’s) characteristic tangy, sour flavor. Which made me wonder if Sweet Frog is technically yogurt at all. The website says nothing about “live and active cultures,” which real yogurt must contain.   I suspect all beneficial bacteria has been obliterated during processing, making Sweet Frog more of an ice-cream or even Dairy Queen-like dessert.

As for whether Sweet Frog will inflict ice cream-like damage to your waist line, the company conspicuosly advertises calorie counts and serving sizes  next to the cash registers.  I couldn’t help but notice that a serving size is measured in grams. Most Americans have no concept what a gram is, making their bid for transparency seem a bit like sleight of hand.

A serving of Sweet Frog is 83 grams, or roughly 3/4 of a cup, which is 100 calories.  A half cup of ice cream is around 125 calories. Not a huge difference.

Still, Sweet Frog just seems healthier than ice cream, and that ultimately what Girl Food is all about:  perception.

Once a season without fail, I’ll open my screen door and an illustrated religious pamphlet will fall out, typically depicting Jesus in some sort of twisted, bleeding agony.  ”Have YOU been saved?” The pamphlet reads.  ”Where will YOU be spending eternity? X denomination hopes it’s not in HELL with the rest of the sinners, idolaters and fornicators…”

I glance around my yard, looking for some wild eyed zealot lurking in the bushes, licking his chops over the idea of bringing another lost sheep back to the fold.

The pamphlets are always from the same religious group, always stuck in the same place in the door, so I can only assume it’s the same person who’s doing it.

I’ll be honest, it creeps me out to think there is some proselytizing stranger out there who is faithfully casing my house while June and I are out here by ourselves with no husband around for at least another three to four months.

These are the times I’m a teensy bit glad I have a gun in the house and that I know how to use it.  Yes, that is right:  I am ARMED.  I AM DANGEROUS.  Just in case my faith stalker turns out to be Jim Jones II.

Anyway, last Saturday morning, it was probably 9:30 or so, I was bounding around my living room to one of my ridiculous and torturous exercise DVDs while June napped when there was a rap on my front door.  I wasn’t exactly dressed for visitors —  I wore an old tank top and a pair of bicycle shorts that remind me of what Demi Moore once wore to the Oscars — and I was sweaty.

I opened the door and there stood an older black couple, both dressed in severe church garb.  Her ankle length skirt was anchored by a pair of sturdy black pilgrim shoes with buckles, and his suit looked like it might have fit him seven years ago, but now served to keep his body upright.  He looked absolutely miserable. She looked ecstatic.  In her hand was one of the Christ-in-agony pamphlets.

I found myself accepting her pamphlet as she launched into her sermon, thinking, these are my faith stalkers?  This gentle older couple?  I was both relieved and annoyed.  Relieved to know I could probably take them in a fight, if necessary, but deeply annoyed, if not outright concerned about my sanity, that I had allowed my fears and paranoia to run away from me — I had become practically trigger happy over this?

I was also annoyed because they seemed so gosh-darn nice and wholesome.  How could I possibly tell this nice older lady to beat it and take her morbid materials and her pilgrim shoes with her?  This was somebody’s grandmother.  This was probably the wildest part of her Saturday.  Did I really want to take that away from her?  (I just felt sorry for him, he looked so miserable.)  So I gratefully accepted all of her pamphlets, brochures and leaflets, and when she finally asked my religion, I told her I worship at the altar of Jillian Michaels and quietly shut the door.

Letting go for a moment how offensive and painful the sight of this flag is for so many Americans, I would like to say to these gentlemen, It’s over.  The war ended.  One hundred and forty seven freakin’ years ago.

My worst fear come to life — the outdoor wood furnace isn’t working properly. I won’t bore you with details but suffice to say that June and I spent a chilly night huddled up in my bed together cursing the very idea of a 19th-century heating system.  Thankfully, we have a propane stove in the kitchen which kept the temperature bearable through the night. This morning at approximately 7:04, I called Jake’s buddy Shelby, who also heats his home with an outdoor wood furnace, and explained my little problem.  Shelby said he’d come over this evening after work to take a look.  Thankfully, today isn’t supposed to be a chilly one.   It’s supposed to be downright tropical, in fact….something like a high of 62 degrees. I don’t know what depresses me more: being cold or global warming. I’ll go with the latter.

So yesterday after the breakdown of my car, Car Seat and I hoofed it over to my friend Maria’s house, who let me hang out, marvel at her Christmas tree, eat her food and drink her coffee while I strategized a plan.  It was eventually determined that my friend Melody’s husband Butch would drive all the way down from their mountaintop abode to pick me and Car Seat up.

This is Butch.  He’s a former corporate executive turned cattle rancher and all around great guy.  And like many former corporate executives turned cattle ranchers, his preference is to live as far from town as humanely possible.

This is Butch’s truck (or one of them anyway — men around here typically don’t own just one truck, which would be like owning half a refrigerator, or half a toaster.)

There’s Car Seat in the back.

Butch and Melody’s friends Fred and Phyllis offered to let me borrow their spare Subaru while my Passat was in the shop.   I’m friendly with Fred and Phyllis, I’ve been to their house for dinner, but we’re not longtime friends.  Yet they were gracious and generous enough to let me borrow their wheels.  I was very touched.

So Butch offered to give me a ride all the way to Fred and Phyllis’s house, who live even further out of town than do Butch and Melody.

But first, a stop so the utility maintenance guys could finish trimming wayward limbs….

Then a quick dump run….

And finally, a traverse up a gravel mountain road.

We reach the summit, Fred and Phyllis’s spectacular place, where Fred, Butch and I hang out for awhile and shoot the breeze, talk politics, and books.

Here’s the vehicle Fred and Phyllis offered to let me borrow: A Subaru Forester.   Butch didn’t even try to install Car Seat for me because it’s an acknowledged fact that anyone currently without small children is physically, cognitively, and emotionally incapable of installing one of these things, which is saying something given that most new parents can’t even handle it.

We throw Car Seat in the back seat, I thank Fred and Butch for their generosity, then high tail it down the mountain….

….where I get stuck behind a tractor for about 5 miles.

I eventually make it back to the mechanic’s, where the manager offers me a fruit jelly.  I take several handfuls.

And finally, the mechanic who is charged with changing the roters, fixing the axle, installing two new ignition coils and four new brake pads in my car (my Passat was messed up!), washes the grime off his hands to come out from the shop and install Car Seat in the Forester.

Good sir, I don’t know your name, but I think I love you.

The bill to have my car fixed was $850, a small price to pay when you consider the cargo.

I had bad car troubles over the weekend, and all I could think was, “Crap, I’m going to have to take the car into the shop,” followed by, “Crap, I’m going to have to take the car seat out of the car.”

Let me back up. On Saturday, June and I and my friend Melody loaded up in my 2003 Volkswagen Passat for a fun-filled afternoon in Lynchburg, Virginia, a town famous for precisely two things (well, three, if you count the historically loaded name of LYNCHburg): the home of Jerry Falwell’s Christian warrior factory, Liberty University, and the factory for J.Crew. How these seemingly disparate factories came to inhabit the same town is somewhat surprising until you consider just how preppy Liberty University is (I have a cousin who went there; she lasted a year).

I was eager to do some Christmas shopping and I’d read you can score incredible deals at the J.Crew factory outlet. Sure enough, I picked up these Italian-made leather shoes (in pewter), which retail for $250, for $40.

Melody got herself this leather purse (in black), valued at $158, for $35.

Merry Christmas to us, right?

As soon as I put the key the ignition, the car began rumbling really bad, like what it feels like to drive down a bumpy gravel road, only we were still in park. We bounced our way to the nearest Meineke, where they thought it was a problem with spark plugs. One hundred fifty four dollars later, the car still rumbled like crazy, and the mechanic thought it might be a problem with the quadra-cylinder-whats-its-whose-its; essentially, an issue beyond the scope of a Meineke, but he said it would be safe to drive back home.

The drive back home is up and over two mountains on a road that is steep and twisty. I was so nervous I became very quiet in the car; assuming we were going to blow up at any moment. I was actually shaking. Melody told me to breath, think positive thoughts. We engaged in conversation. I brought up the Penn State pedophilia scandal and the breakdown of Congress. You know, feel good topics. We eventually made our way home, safe and sound.

But all I could think was, Oh my god, I’m going to have to take the car in…..and take the car seat out.

The car seat has this very insidious hold over me. I am terrified of it. Maybe it’s the braille like instruction manual, or all the belts and clips and loops and knobs, but my brain goes into shutdown mode at the prospect of removing it, so terrified am I that I’m not going to be able to hook it back the same way, turning the seat into a catapult for my poor unsuspecting child. No lie, I once tried to install a car seat with my friend Paula in Brooklyn, and we wrestled with that thing for 45 minutes, and when we finally got it locked into place, it still jostled like the defective last car on a roller coaster ride; it so did not feel safe.

So I brought the car in to the shop this morning, and in addition to fixing my car, I asked the the mechanic, who has small children of his own, to unhook the car seat for me because, see, mechanics are the only ones truly qualified to operate these ridiculously complicated contraptions.

And now I’m wandering around town holding the dreaded car seat, hoping I can borrow someone’s wheels. Assuming I can track down a spare vehicle, my goal is to drive back to the shop and plead with the kindly mechanic to install the car seat in the borrowed car for me. He can add his labor to my bill if he wants to; I refuse to install that thing myself.

So yestersday’s post about the Dear Santa postcards from disadvantaged kids….

Come to find out the kids aren’t disadvantaged at all.   How did I find out?  Funny you should ask.  One of the cards that caught my eye, from a little girl named Kelsie requesting a fake dog, was actually the same Kelsie belonging to a good friend of mine, Marnie.  Marnie read my post and texted to let me know she found it amusing that of all the postcards taped to the window, I highlighted one from her child, a child I have met on many, many occasions.  And I can tell you this:  I’ve been to Kelsie’s house, and Kelsie isn’t exactly lacking in the toy department.  I’m pretty sure that little girl owns at least four fake dogs already, plus a few unicorns, Barbie Dream Cars, Sketchers, Bratz Dolls, Silly Bandz, and whatever else little girls consider hot these days.

In my attempt to be magnanimous, I assumed Dear Santa postcards taped in the window of a business must be from underprivileged kids.   Turns out the furniture store was just looking for a fun way to decorate their windows.  Not that Kelsie isn’t deserving of a fake dog; she’s an awesome little girl who deserves twenty fake dogs, plus a few pooping pooch lawn ornaments as well,  but I think I’ll let her parents take care of those requests.  I’ll probably  reserve my Secret Santa-ing for the kids’ names and wish lists hanging on the tree just inside the Walmart, which Marnie informed belong to children in our community who are truly in need.

One of the nicest parts of the holidays is getting to buy presents for random kids. I came across a wall of Dear Santa postcards taped in the window of a local furniture store.

It’s a reminder again of how many kids go without during the holidays….and arguably the rest of the year too. What struck me about the postcards is that kids, regardless of the economic situation at home, all pretty much want the same things: Hot Wheels, baby clothes and Barbies.

I went down the list, selecting a few postcards that caught my eye.  (Note the “JD tractor” on this note.  That’s John Deere to you city folk.)

The postcards also poised an interesting dilemma: What if I buy the wrong thing?  The JD Tractor I think I can handle (the toy kind anyway), but what exactly is a bagger?  Is this some strange farming apparatus I’ve never heard of? Or does this child want his or her own personal human grocery store bagger, that breed who just knows to separate the bread from milk?  Specifics, child, specifics!

Kelsie wants a fake dog.  I’m guessing that means “stuffed animal,” though I suppose it could also mean this elegant lawn ornament from SkyMall.

A “no boys clubhouse.”  Ginny, you’ve just described my home.

I guess part of the fun of playing Santa is trying to decipher what the heck these kids are talking about.  Whatever I end up buying I’ll cross my fingers I don’t end up ruining anyone’s Christmas with a lawn ornament resembling a pooping dog.

A friend who has a daughter about June’s age emailed me this pic  with a joke about this being our girls in about 8 years:  Tween turkey slayers.

The funny thing is, if it’s a choice between a daughter who plays with Justin Bieber dolls and a daughter who hunts game, I think I’d almost prefer the turkey slayer (though I realize those aren’t mutually exclusive pursuits).   You don’t mess with a little girl dressed in head to toe camo holding a rifle taller than she is.  Especially one with a Ted Nugent-like gleam in her eye like the kid on the left.  Never trust a redhead with a gun.

There are a lot of reasons not to commit crime — the threat of life in prison and group showers among them —  but the top of my personal list is what happens to those who break the rules in a small town.

Not only do they print your name in the local newspaper for all to see, but they print your address as well.  You know, just in case someone wants to drive by and spray your  doublewide with bullets for having “carnal knowledge of a child.”  I don’t even know what “carnal knowledge of a child” is, and I don’t want to know, but here’s the offender who really caught my eye:  Laura Marvin up at the top.  Her crime:  Writing bad checks.  Girlfriend probably bounced a couple of checks at the Piggly Wiggly only to get her ass lumped with the child touchers, armed felons and car thieves of my fair town.

A nice kick off to the holiday season at the Marvin household.