What is the world coming to?

I am shaking my head in disgust at the world today. As I lounged in bed this morning watching Regis & Kelly (I lead a life of tremendous importance and dignity), I learned that Judge freaking Judy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Now, as cultural and/or historical landmarks go, the Walk of Fame is perhaps the least significant and shallowest of them all (hello, Gettysburg, Mont Vernon, even Graceland (maybe) rank way higher in importance), but has Judge Judy REALLY done anything to merit that honor?

She yells at yokels about how stupid they are for lending their toothless roommate a clunker of a car after the roommate drives it into a lake. She says "witty" things like, "Don't pee on my leg & tell me it's raining". Is this talent? Is this icon-making material? Do we, as a culture, really want to immortalize Judge Judy? Am I going to take my son to Hollywood one day, point at her star & say, "This is Judge Judy, honey. She yelled at dumb-asses,"?

She said in her interview that she had hoped to have her star somewhere near Sidney Poitier's. Sidney Freaking Poitier!?! I can't stop shaking my head. Its as if my little 5 lbs, 12 year old kitty just turned to me and said, "You know, I think I'd like to move out of this dump, head to the jungle and run with the big cats"...Aside from the fact that in that scenario my cat starts speaking to me, it's just ABSURD. Sidney Poitier??? Did she SEE, "To Sir, With Love"?! He makes no analogies to pee and rain in that movie...

I always thought that the Hollywood Walk of Fame was reserved for our legends--our Katherine Hepburns and our Gregory Pecks; people who made Hollywood a respectable, iconic mecca of talent as opposed to the sess-pool of "white-trash made good" that it is today. Or at least today's Walk of Fame stars should have contributed in some way to----uh, HOLLYWOOD. Your Julia Robertses and your Tom Cruises (before he went insane), or your Charlize Therons (just for ability to ugly it up when the role calls for it!) At this rate, they're going to give Lindsay Lohan a star for "Herby--Fully Loaded". How can I bring a child into a world where Lindsay Lohan gets a star for "Herby--Fully Loaded"??!!! Oh yeah, and where you need to refinance your house to fill your gas tank, there's terrorism, mad cow disease, bird flu, war, unchecked genocide & a president who says, "nucular" instead of "nuclear"? These things concern me, too.

Speaking of the little man--he is fixing to bust out of me in whatever manner possible. I don't think he's received any formal training yet on the whole, "you leave via the birth canal" tradition and is currently testing out the idea of coming out through my side, just under a rib, or burrowing his way out via my butt. The side exit seems pretty obvious--he likes to kick and punch and he's really strong. I'm not entirely convinced that at some point, I won't look down after a vigorous punch and find a teeny little fist sticking out of my body. And my burrowing through the butt theory is due to the fact that my tailbone feels like it is slowly being cracked in half, as though somehow the little guy smuggled in a chisel and is hammering away in there at this pesky piece of bone that is keeping him from the outside world. I particularly like it when the pain radiates up my entire back and down my thighs--that's a party. Thanks, kid.

I am also taking a lot of grief from my belly button these days. Apparently, prior to pregnancy, it went all the way to China because it has yet to pop out at almost 35 weeks. However, I have started to notice that it's on its last "legs" so to speak, in the "innie" department. That really isn't a big deal to me, cosmetically speaking. I have no deep connection to my innie, nor am I losing any sleep at the thought that if it pops out, it might never go back in. Please, I'm losing sleep over about a million other things right now--this doesn't even rank.

What is unexpectedly disconcerting about the shallowing out and disappearance of the belly button is that all the skin around it now has previously been sheltered from the harsh world outside my belly button by being IN my belly button. What they don't tell you is that all that skin is very sensitive and not at all happy about being rubbed by the fabric of your clothes or the constant finger poking by your husband who thinks it's "so cute" to try to push that little bit at the bottom back in. No, friends, my belly button is not happy. And if my belly button's not happy, then in some small way, I'm not happy...because it's always a bit achey and nagging.

Today the chauffeurs will escort me to another growth scan of the baby (perhaps I will be able to catch him red-handed in the act of demolishing my tailbone with his little chisel). My fingers are crossed that he has cornered 5lbs at this point, since that seems to be the 'magic NICU' number. Of course, I am also hoping that he's not pushing 8 lbs or anything obscene like that. Monday is the big meeting with Dr. Dark Cloud to discuss the removal of the old cerclage and the "planning" of....gulp, labor. I feel like from here on in, my life is going to become a blur. Hopefully a very happy, happy blur. Thank goodness I took the opportunity to bitch about Judge Judy while I still have the chance...