The Secret Life of Pet Eaters

Cats, Capes, and Crisps

Wait, what’s happening in Springfield??!!

Ok whew I am sweating WOW.

By the time you read this, the debate will be long over. Picked apart by vultures, fully digested, entropy, now it’s all just pink goo but I will still offer my two cents!!!!

My Big Takeaways:

1. What a genius move Kamala made, in forcing a handshake off the top. He must have been standing there the whole time imagining microbes climbing up his arm. RATTLING. Fun, fun stuff. The amateur body language expert in me enjoyed watching his sphincter fully seize five seconds into the broadcast.

2. I laughed too loudly and too vindictively many times, and frightened my children. Pre-debate, I enjoyed a light dinner of just my own fingernails, with a side of torn off nail polish. Mid debate I ate Trader Joe’s Everything But The Bagel crackers like a bucket of them was strapped to my face. Thankfully by today my hands should be back to normal, by which I mean they will once again look like the hands of a nineteenth century scullery maid.**

3. Yay! Something coherent happened on the subject of abortion!!!! Though somebody please tell me why Linsey Davis had to clarify the point about how baby execution is illegal literally everywhere, and not Kamala Harris. This clarification is almost never made and I truly do not understand why. In any case, Linsey did a great job, and it was one of many excellent moderator moments. The shoulder pads were serious, the attitude was unflinching and unamused. Perfect.

4. Literally how dare anyone be undecided. If you can’t make up your mind at this point, it’s now too obvious that you are just trying to get on tv. Be cooler about it. Stop answering surveys and putting yourself out there as a panelist, and just work on your monologue. There’s a better path to getting famous by saying dumb things and it’s called TikTok. Time to get in your early voting line and get a sticker. Enough.

5. Trump is spending SO much time laying the groundwork for the claim that if he loses, the election has been stolen. Just asking the question: Is it not also fraud to falsely, knowingly, continuously claim that a fraud has been committed, and could be committed again? Even though it provably never happened in the first place? Is this a land of no laws whatsoever? How many of these false claims are we expected to tolerate? Who can superglue this man’s lips shut? Can we also superglue his fingers to a chair? I just need him to stop talking and stop being anywhere near a phone or tablet, or my eyeballs or ear-balls, and certainly nowhere near the White House.

Anyway, these are *my* thought crimes, at least, the ones I am willing to say out loud.

Now that the dust has settled, once again I greet the day by reading the news on my phone, enumerating the many reasons I should not greet the day by reading the news on my phone, and consciously pivoting my thoughts to something absurd such as “am I finally ready to rock the fall cape of my dreams?”

It’s true that I have one of those personalities that can be positively devoured by the wrong embellishment on an outfit, for example: me in ruffles. I can pull them off, but only when I want to present myself as a time traveler from the 1980s, fully sauced, and fresh from a luncheon where we vigorously discussed how Twisted Sister lyrics are the handiwork of Satan.

The point is that a fall cape can be a real man-eater. AM I READY? According to my family: “please don’t.”

But can I afford not to?

Anyway. There are SO many amazing Choice Words episodes for you to catch up on–including my own Very Special Episode with Carrie Coon, during which the superfan inside me could barely contain herself. 

Carrie is a spectacular actor, and, no surprises here - she DELIVERS in His Three Daughters. I laughed so hard at the myriad of majors she tried on for size in college. Folks, I assure you, no stone was left unturned. I mourn that our own children are so unlikely to be that experimental in college, due to the fact that college costs are… out of control. Sorry I meant to say that college costs are ludicrous, and disgusting, and an international embarrassment. 

Keeping up the theme of “Why Are America’s Finest Actors Saying Yes To Me” this week’s guest is Shailene Woodley.

We had a GREAT conversation, and to my surprise, I learned that we are both confirmed cat ladies. This led me to a ham-fisted description of one of the cats my teenage son is taking care of, as part of his pet sitting job.

I describe him as a man in temporary cat form, due to a witch’s curse. 

I mean…

This cat is human, right? Every time I accompany my son to his job this cat looks at me like I am the most disappointing person. Like he wants Shailene Woodley to walk in? But instead *I* walk in, and his shoulders just kind of… drop. Le sigh.

OK. Full exhale. To distract myself from the knowledge that no matter what happens this will still somehow be a close election (fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck),… I made this apple crisp and the whole thing DISAPPEARED from the fridge.

My family betrayed me by eating it behind my back, and I guess that is a good sign. 

Look how much was left for me from a full ass pan. 

This is a joke portion of apple crisp.

Off to make another one, which I shall hide in a cupboard like the nuns from Call The Midwife.

Xo

Sam

**All I’m saying is that in the dozens of photo shoots I have done over the course of my career, nine times out of ten they would simply replace my hands with someone else’s hands, thus confirming all of my insecurities, without apology.

Like - whose hand even is this???