The Fennec Fox. Too Cute to Live.

This is a fennec fox. If I had a fennec fox, I would squeeze it so hard, I would smoosh it like Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

That is all.

Hello, Gorgeous

It's my mom's birthday. She has naturally curly hair, she's a good dancer, and she has skills.

Social skills.  Pie making skills. Raspberry jam skills. And giggling skills. 

I'm going to buy her a book. She expects it, and she's going to get it.

But which one?

Ooh, to be continued...

One Jean Jacket, Heavily Stone Washed, to the Most Unfortunate Bidder

I had one of those, "holy Haysoos, I am wearing 1989" moments today. I guess I never look in the mirror once I put my coat on, so I had not noticed that once I put on my old jean jacket I turn into James Dean's mother.

It was cold at work today, so I put it on (why? is there any R value to a denim jacket at all?). As soon as I walked into the restroom, I realized that this jacket has overstayed its welcome in my closet by a good ten years.

It's time to comb through the closet for more Goodwill fodder. And I thought I was going to have a hum-drum weekend!

This Is How My Brain Works and I'm Not Sorry

This is how my brain works.

This morning, I had two eggs. As I needed one egg for my breakfast (soft boiled on multi-grain toast), this left one egg.

As I noticed this egg situation, I thought to myself, one egg: not enough for making cookies but just enough to make brownies. Then I went about my day. That is, 95% of my brain went about my day. The other 5% of my brain chanted "brownies! brownies! brownies!" at me until the noise was deafening and seizure inducing.

Thus, to avoid hearing and/or brain damage, I am now forced to make brownies with my last remaining egg.

No, I did not consider the consequences to tomorrow morning's breakfast. I plan to panic when the time comes.

Carmina Burana Abuse Continues

THE LORD, obviously stilled miffed about the little ditty penned by an old monk about the vicissitudes of fate (rather than the vicissitudes of THE LORD), continues to heap indignities upon Orff's choral funfest, including its Top Ten status as soundtrack for movie trailers featuring righteous dudes delivering fairly-earned whoop-ass and now funny YouTube videos featuring misheard lyrics.

Drew? Is That You?

I Promise to Come Back with a Recharged Brain Soon.

I'm a little wiped out these last two weeks from fighting virulent computer viruses, followed by a completely wiped hard drive, followed by the realization that the wiped hard drive is toast; followed by a brand new hard drive, followed by the server-link-up snafus and email-to-Outlook and Outlook-to-Word glitches that have inevitably followed. All while trying to produce the same amount of important legal words on important-looking legal paper that I normally produce.

Once I get home from work, I want to (a) run until I'm as physically tired as I am mentally drained; (b) eat food that doesn't taste like it's been wrapped in plastic; and (c) drink. In that order.

So far tonight, I'm up to (c).

This too will pass. In the meantime, I'm not at at the top of my game. But I'm pretty glad I'm typing this on an Apple product.

Failure of the Week: Tristram Shandy

A Pseudo-Intellectual Book Report: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Lawrence Sterne

People read this book and enjoy it. It only reinforces my pseudo-intellectual cred that I am not enjoying it. My French is too rusty, my Latin nonexistent, I didn't read Don Quixote, nor did I study philosophy in college.  I can sort of follow the gist, but that is not enough to make it fun. I guess I know most of the words in the sentences, at least the current definitions, but, man, I do not know what this guy means when he strings them together in his most English, most Sir Harumphs-a-lot manner. 

Random sentence to prove my point: 

If the fixure of Momus's glass in the human breast, according to the proposed emendation of that arch-critick, had taken place, -first, This foolish consequence would certainly have followed, -That the very wisest and very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-money every day of our lives.

Hilarious, right?

The worst part is that I know he is making jokes and I don't get them. There's nothing I hate worse than not getting jokes. It makes me feel so deaf and out-of-the-loop.

It's a bit of irony that this piece of literary history from the 1760s gives me a little taste of what my creaking, elderly, senile future will be like, when all the youngsters make jokes about their iFaces while I sit by, letting the nonsense syllables flow over me and fall gently asleep.

It's Hard To Stop A Trane From Pissing You Off

Yeah, the $12,000 heat pump from Area Heating & Cooling, Inc. is still not working right. It has frozen up like an Otter Pop.

Fortunately, I have these pants made of teddy bear pelts.

Assume the Weekend Position

Wake me on Monday.

And don't laugh at our shiny fireplace insert. We'll replace it when we run out of iPods and bicycles to buy.

Mortified: Hair Edition

I heard a podcasted essay today about someone's experiences in a dance team in high school - an experience she now looks back upon with some mortification.

I pretty much had it all together in high school (as long as you don't look too closely at the photographs where I'm wearing my favorite fire-engine-red jumpsuit, and my senior picture which looks as if I am trying to get some shut-eye), but it was a different story in junior high.

Yes, in junior high, I was not the doyenne of taste you know and love today (today's fashion tip: dig my new pants made entirely out of teddy bear pelts). I was flailing - socially, physical-educationally, and coiffurely - and made some unfortunate fashion and hair choices.

One that springs to mind is a hairstyle I sported for a few months when I was maybe 12 or 13 - it was like a wedge haircut, only with the wedge part all curled up. It was a style that started at Dorothy Hamill and took a startling turn into Bozo. I, however, thought I looked hot, hot, hot.

I remember walking with my best friend, Sally, down the shoulder of an out-of-town road one summer during vacation and counting the number of honks we got from passing cars. At the time, we thought we were turning some major man-heads with our Lolita-style beauty, but looking back, we might have just been causing fits of hysteria, which in turn caused hands to slap uncontrollably on their horns.

And no, I do not believe there is any photographic evidence of this hairstyle. My parents, wisely, focused the lens on other things until I came to my senses.

My mind is on hair today because a week after getting another expensive hair cut, my hair is back to its natural, 70's hair band ways, and I'm this close to getting my pixie back on.

Pixie to the people, bitches.

Super Bowl Hype-tacular

As. It. Happens.

The sound just cut out in the middle of the Obama interview. I bet it's because he's stringing together a truly presidential line of profanities.

Our president just gave a shout-out. I love this president.

Apparently Hines Ward will be proving the naysayers wrong.

Apparently the Cardinals are jumping around and all loosy-goosy. I understand that's good.

Faith Hill is here to sing us a song about the Super Bowl. Oh, good.

So Jennifer Hudson knocks it out of the park old-school style.

So Kurt Warner wins the Walter Payton Super Guy award for his good works on and  off the field. Now we know who is the best man. Now we just need to find out who is the best quarterback.

I'm rooting for Warner-Fitzergerald.

There should be a rule. Three syllable cut-off. Roethlisberger can be Roethlisberg or Lisberger, but not Roethlisberger.  Too many syllables.

It's not a good sign when Roethlisblabla can jog back and forth behind the line of scrimmage three or four times before delivering a caught pass.

In fact it's a bad sign.

A new Kirk? Too soon! Too soon!

OMG, AZ - 18 seconds to half-time on the 2 yard line and PICKED OFF ALL THE WAY TO A TD! AAAAHH!

James Harrison picks it off and takes it all the way back. He's walking the sideline, taking all the atta-boys from the team, and all I'm thinking is "he's got really nice cheekbones." I guess I'm not a complete football fan.

I guess I don't shop at any of the stores that apparently had 3-D glasses available for the special 3-D commercials. Lame.

And another nipple-free half time safely behind us.

Nothing is going Arizona's way tonight. Pittsburgh must have prayed better.

Grrrr. Arrrrgh.

Holy smoke, football fans, did you see that? First the safety, then Fitzgerald hits that pass full speed, and he's in the end zone!

2:36 to go - can AZ hold on to a three-point lead?

Crap. Pittsburgh is going to spoil our fun. First down on the seven yard line.

TD Pittsburgh. Its Pittsburgh 27-23.

Grrrr. Arrrrgh.

Dammit. This is the piglet, signing off on Super Bowl XVIII.