shady pines, ma.

bEa-LaTeD. friday was bea arthur's 82nd birthday. i hope you all marked the day with cheesecake, sarcastic one-liners, and sexual frustration.

of course, bea arthur will always be best known for her stint as dorothy zbornak on the golden girls, a show that i watched religiously as a child and which holds a special place in my heart. oh, those wild and crazy old ladies of miami, what made those senior citizens so appealing to a young girl? a lot of things. let's look at wise-cracking dorothy zbornak since this post is in belated celebration of bea arthur's birthday. dorothy had the freedom to do what every child dreams of - threaten and boss around her mother. and she did. constantly. and to great amusement. at least once an episode. dorothy held sophia's fate in her hands. she could easily send her straight back to the nursing home at any moment, a fact she often leveraged against sophia when she stepped out of line. oh, the power of that one simple sentence: "shady pines, ma" - didn't we all envy that? that totally reversed power system, daughter in charge? no "what's the magic word?" or "don't talk back", no "finish what's on your plate or you can't have dessert", no "who are you going with? and when will you be home?", no "clean your room", no "go to your room" no "you're grounded", no "don't hit your sister", no "it's time for bed" or "because i'm your mother and i say so", no "you aren't leaving this house dressed like that, you look like a slut." dorothy was a hero living out our wildest fantasy, offering us hope that there might come a day when the tables would turn, when the discipline, the nagging, the, god forbid, parenting would end and it would be our turn to dish it out. yeah, go ahead, mom, threaten me that santa isn't coming if i don't shape up because what goes around comes around and i've got "s h a d y p i n e s , m a" down pat and i won't be afraid to use it. even if the price i have to pay is turning into some sort of lonely, sexually frustrated she-beast with horrible taste in clothes and a vocal range in the basement. your days of telling me what to do are numbered. i know, i watch the golden girls.