And There It Is. I Am Old And Pa Is Hot.

Reminder: Win a Crazy Aunt Purl book here.
My interview with her will be posted tomorrow.
Prom contest pictures coming Friday!

I know 34 isn't actually old. I just also know it isn't exactly young, either; at least, it certainly isn't young the way this is young:

But at some point in my being at home(!) with my baby(!) while watching The Hallmark Channel(!) and not changing the channel from when the Golden Girls* episode ended to when The Little House on the Prairie(!) episode began, and I looked up to see Pa Ingalls digging or hammering or lifting or something involving him being sweaty and dirty and muscular and thought, "Whoa. He was HOT."

Now. Every time I watched episodes of Little House when I was younger, Laura was her cutesy half-pint self and I was her age. And I related to her (because all of us wanted to relate to her), even though technically I should have related to Mary because she was the oldest of three girls and so was I. But no one wanted to be like Mary, pretty though she was, not because she went blind -- although that was one of the more traumatic turning points of my childhood, to be sure -- but because Mary was boring and perfect and frankly, a stick-in-the-mud.

The point is, Pa was Pa. He was an old man. My love interests were limited to the likes of Willie (who was an asshole) and like, Almanzo who was too old for Laura and I both. But Pa? Absolutely not. Especially after he went on to be an angel on Highway to Heaven and then, well, died.

That's not the sort of thing that my age bracket of hot guys did.

Whoa!

Not only was I in love with Michael J. Fox, I was in love with Alex P. Keaton.
I'd like to say that was the last time I was infatuated with a Republican, but there was the whole issue of my high-school boyfriend (pre-Jim) and that is just another blog post and prom picture entirely.

ANYWAY. Pa. Dude.

Okay, so you don't see the sweaty, dirty, exposed pecs here, but that is because there are about 4 stock photos of Michael Landon from his Little House days and they're all proper and family-friendly and that's not at all what I'm talking about. (Even though he is giving a little sexy smirk here that only a man very secure in his sexiness could give through all that goddamned feathered hair.)

And you know? I thought about pausing my DVR on a scene where Pa is looking particularly beefyhot, but then I'd be the crazy blogger lady who is taking pictures OF HER TELEVISION for the express purpose of defending her claim that an old, dead tv actor was hot once.

(Ooo-weee! No wonder my blog brings all the boys to the yard. By which I mean two. And one of them is my cousin and the other is my husband.)

Whatever. This entry isn't a total loss, though, because I did find this in my Google image search:

One damn fine Michael Landon.

So, see?

I mean, well, what was my point? Who's old? What?

*I'm not giving you a ! there, because Golden Girls is underrated and hilarious, and that doesn't make me old, that just indicates that I have very particular taste in television.