Like, I'm so sure.

Even if you don't like the band, Journey, you totally have to watch their new video above. It's like, soooo bonus.

Remember the Salahis and, like, how they crashed a White House dinner?  Turns out Michaele Salahi left her husband Tareq (his name is so gross!) for Journey's guitarist Neal Schon!!!!  So, like, on Valentine's Day, the band released the video to their latest single, "Resonate". It is SOOO AWESOME.  Michaele and Neal make out and EVERYthing on the beach. Just like I do!!!  It is so totally awesome!

But Tareq (that name is so barf) has filed a suit for $50 million against Michaele for "a lost-reality show contract for $150,000".  What-EVer.  He's so mean because the video is, like, KILLER.  I'm in junior high school and I should know when something is like, really, really, really good.  

One of my friends (NOT!)  asked me what "resonate" means.  As if!  Who cares if you can make out on a beach?????!!!!! Duh! That is so totally rez!

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.

 HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

This year, Flannista received the sweetest cards for Valentine's Day -- and each made some sort of reference to the place I had in someone's heart. 

"We keep people in our hearts because it is safe there and full of love," says the card on the top, left. Inside the inscription simply says, "You are in my heart."  The hand-made card below that has a clever "Wheel of Fortune" theme. Bottom right is a lovely card from PEACEsista that included a hand-made beaded keychain made by the Maasai women of Tanzania (at top right). "Whether you can see it or not," writes PEACE, "visualize it as holding the key to my heart. You ALWAYS are welcome & have a home there."

Warm sentiments for a cold season.  Love to all.

The 54th Grammy Awards were celebrated last evening and the Sassistas! -- desperate for a Madonna-inspired Super Bowl spectacle -- stupidly watched the red-carpet arrivals. Last year, if you recall, Lady Gaga arrived in a large egg from which she emerged later on stage (see top photo). Kinda hard to "beat" that, we thought . . .

 . . . until Nicki Minaj arrived on the Grammy red carpet last evening with . . . . her father?

CAPTION, PLEASE.

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.

Today's was Flannista's fourth class with her precious First Graders, and before we actually started class, Flann wrote two words on the white board and asked the kids to think about what those words meant. The two words were: VITAL METRICS.  For those of you new to the sass stream this week, "Vital Metrics" was the theme of a speech given by a CEO at a company annual meeting this week.  

"What do these two words mean?" Flann asked the class. Following are their answers:

• "The man who said this is very mean."
• "Busy staff"
• "Metal"
• "Words stacking up"
• "He wants everyone to think he's a big grown-up."
• "This person wants to be famous."
• "This person wants people to know he can do anything he wants to."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Today's lesson was on writing based on what we can taste.  I shall post several lessons in the sass stream, but here's one of the writing exercises:

The purple object after the exercise is pizza, by the way.  Why purple?  "To match Miss Flann's hair."

Three weeks ago today, Flannista finally had lunch with the Chief Financial Officer of all of TRM's companies. I had asked him in November if I could take him out to lunch; three months later, our schedules finally synched. His executive assistant told me that he preferred to eat lunch at the office and ordered what each of us wanted from the Panera Bread menu. She then arranged for us to meet in one of TRM's small dining rooms. Because he had been sick with the stomach flu for several days, the CFO simply ordered a bowl of chicken soup. I ordered a Fugi Apple salad.

When I arrived at the dining room, I saw two place settings.  At one place setting was a linen placemat with a china bowl filled with chicken soup sitting on a large china plate.  Next to the plate was a complete set of sterling silver utensils, including a soup spoon and a linen napkin. To the upper right of the plate was a crystal glass filled with ice.  Next to the glass was a can of Diet Coke. 

The other place setting included a bottle of water next to a sealed Panera Bread box. No china. No silver. No crystal glass. No ice. No linen napkin. Going on a hunch, I opened up the box. Inside was the Fugi Apple salad in its plastic container. Also inside was a set of hermetically-sealed plasticware with napkin and a cookie.

The CFO was 50 minutes late for our lunch. Even though we had a very open and honest conversation, I couldn't quite get past knowing my place.

Three times while I waited for him, his assistant entered the small dining room, took his chicken soup and heated it up in a nearby microwave.

He didn't touch one drop of the soup.

I ate my entire salad.  Drank my bottle of water. Easily disposed of the box. Went back to shooting a video. Saved my cookie. I ate it later in my hotel room, alone. No china. No silver. No crystal glass. No ice. No linen napkin. 

It tasted great.

When the floor drops out, as it has now,
you cannot hear the squirrel on the wire
outside your window, the wheels spinning
on the road below. You want only pity
and are presented with the unbelievable
effrontery of a world that moves on.
But wait: this is not the person you are.
You’re the kind of person who
sits in dark theaters crying at the collarbones
that curve across the dancers’ chests,
at the proof of a perfection they represent;
a person who goes out walking in a four-day drizzle,
sees a pot of geraniums and is seized, overcome
by how they can bring so much (what else
can you call it?) joy. You love the world,
are sure, at least, that you have. But be truthful:
you only love freely things that have nothing
to do with you. You’re like a matchstick house:
intricately constructed but flimsy and hollow inside.
You’re a house in love with the trees beside you -
able to look at them all day, aware of how faithful they are -
but unable to forgive that they’d lie down
leaving you exposed and alone in a large enough storm.

-- "Another Poem About the Heart" by Jenn Habel

Today is the annual meeting of TRM's company.  In a presentation that will feature many fancy-schmancy Power Point slides, the TRM's CEO will unveil the "vital metrics"  (key goals) of the company for 2012. Flannista thought of "vital metrics" when she saw this image posted in Westsista's Facebook newsfeed early this morning. This is what would have happened to Dr. Seuss in corporate America. 

That's Flann's meta-narrative, and she's sticking to it.

 IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR!

THE 2012 ESTROFEST!

THIS YEAR SPONSORED BY MAKES-HER-MARK!