What do the mayor of Gotham and Adam Ant have in common?

Vote for me. I'm desperate, but not serious.

I saw The Dark Knight yesterday.

Whoa. Wow. Damn. Yikes. etcetera. As you've probably read and heard from everyone else by now, it's fantastic. Amazing effects. Heath Ledger giving the performance of his (sadly finished) life. Christian Bale, still hot. A riveting story that asks a lot of questions about good, evil and humanity.

But there was one question that went unanswered for me. One that dogs me still.

Why was the mayor of Gotham wearing eyeliner?

I mean, we all know why The Joker was wearing makeup. He's off his fucking nut. But why did the mayor look like he should be fronting Spandau Ballet? Gavin Newsom has the hair gel, but this is ridiculous. It bugged me enough that every time the mayor was onscreen, it's all I thought about. And considering how hard Gary Oldman worked, that's not really fair, is it?

Was he experimenting with gender bending, like the cute little Asian barista who gets me my latte at Starbucks? Was he secretly in cahoots with The Joker, wearing kohl in solidarity? (c'mon, The Joker didn't try THAT HARD to kill him.) Maybe it's a Gotham public sector thing, and Commissioner Gordon has a garter belt on under his suit. This really needs to be explained in the next film.

And if you ask me, the mayor concentrates too much liner on his lower lid. He needs to draw more emphasis to the outer corners of his deep-set eyes. I mean, if you're going to do it, go big or go home.

Steal this trash

So.

I came out to my car this morning and all four windows were open. So was the sunroof. Now, I've been a little crazed this week, but I don't recall leaving the car wide open at any point yesterday.
That leaves two possibilities:

1. While unloading the car yesterday, Rick somehow accidentally triggered the windows and sunroof to open (My car is full of these little surprises)
2. Someone, somehow, got the windows down despite the definite locked-ness of my car. To do...something.

God I hope it's not number 2. Because that would blow. There has been a rash of burglaries in Boulder this summer. We've had our Burley trailer and a scooter stolen already. Losing an entire frickin' car would put me over the edge. I've seen that movie before and I hated the ending.

There's also the possibility that they didn't want the car, but rather the stuff piled in it. Of which there is much. If that's the case, the joke is on them. Because my car is basically a big rolling garbage bin. It's not surprising that they didn't want to steal any of my 27 empty water bottles. Or my three-week-old Boulder Weekly. Or that cornucopia of crumbs and dried fruit remnants that my kids are collecting in the back. I would estimate the total value of my car's contents to be about 3 cents and an empty GoGurt tube. (All of which, coincidentally, is probably IN my car right now!)

That's too bad. Because they didn't take any of that trash, and now I have to clean out my own damn car. Bummer. If they were going to break in, at least they could be useful.

Oh well. More incentive to actually be able to park my car in my garage. The contents of which are worth 4 cents. And Bret Michaels.

The shittiest president ever

Pardon me, can you please direct me to the GEORGE W. BUSH SEWAGE PLANT?

Oh, how I wish I were still a San Francisco voter.

This November, there will be an initiative on the San Francisco ballot to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Swear to god. Some guy thought of the idea after several beers with friends. Then he put on an Uncle Sam suit, gathered 12,000 signatures and made it happen. Democracy kicks ass.

I'm considering moving back immediately so I can re-register and vote for it. Not that they will even need my help. There is just no way this thing is not gonna pass. And no matter how fancy and schmancy W's presidential library is, no matter how many speaking engagements he gives, even if he lays in state in the Capitol rotunda after a long life, there will be a shit treatment plant with his name on it.

It's a common and correct assumption that a sewage plant is pretty gross. People, you have no idea. My grandmother worked for many years for the City of Indianapolis. Her last job before she retired was in the office of the Indianapolis sewage treatment facility. One time I was visiting Grandma for the weekend, so my mom dropped me off with her on Friday afternoon at work. I cannot even desribe the stench. To this day I have never been anywhere that smelled so foul. Imagine 750,000 people dropping a dook in the same spot at the same time. Yup. I remember thinking, "Wow, Grandma must've really screwed the pooch to end up in this job." I was only there for a half hour and I'm still traumatized by it.

And now, people will smell that vile odor and think of our president. Not that they don't already. But it'll be official.

Only in Boulder

Overheard at the Farmer's Market last night:

"Dude, you are an embarrassment to Ultimate Frisbee."

Casper the emotional dagger

Friendly Ghosts and pregnancy hormones do not mix

Casper the movie was on TV tonight. You already know this because you all TiVoed it, don't lie. We watched it with Gianni because it is a fairly non-sucky kid movie, as these things go. I know this because I've already seen it. Oh, yes I have. About 3.7 years ago, Casper the Friendly Ghost nearly did me in.

At the time, I was pregnant with Tea and desperate to veg out with some premium channels. Casper was the best thing on (sad, isn't it? Somehow I just wasn't up for the HBO world premiere of Catwoman.)

So I watched our favorite friendly ghost in his first feature film, got into the plot (believe me, they packed a lot of nuance into those other three mean ghosts). Ninety minutes later, Rick came in to find me on the couch, sobbing my eyes out at the heart-tugging ending. Goes without saying that I will never, ever live that down. I hadn't cried so hard since I watched Babe 2: Pig in the City when I was pregnant with Gianni. Or as my friend Marjorie refers to it, "The Shoah of talking pig movies."

A week later, my friend Miranda, who was also pregnant, told me that she had a hard time sitting through Hotel Rwanda. I told her, "I lost it at the end of Casper the Friendly Ghost. I don't think Hotel Rwanda is on my dance card."

Anyway--we watched it tonight and I sat through the ending and realized, oh my god, I was a hormonal idiot. I mean, not even the slightest bit heart-tugging. I think Gianni and Tea actually stopped watching to do their taxes during that part of the movie. It's amazing what a little pregnancy can do to a body.

Imagine what would have happened if Casper were haunting the Hotel Rwanda. I never would have made it.

I'll try the organic shit-on-a-shingle and a nice pinot noir

We are home and trying to catch up on all of the news we missed on our trip to Greece. (Tim Russert? George Carlin? Who knew. RIP, gentlemen.)

Rick had our tv uncharacteristically blaring MSNBC for most of the evening. While I was wading through my 400 or so work emails in anticipation of my re-entry tomorrow, Rick suddenly said: You have GOT to see this.

It turns out that there is a military-themed burger joint in Beirut called--get this--Buns n' Guns. I shit you not. Go look it up. (I'm jetlagged, URLs are hard today). It has camouflage decor and guys in military garb serving up grilled treats with stupid army names. It's moronic, and, given the location, perhaps a teeny bit offensive. But that's not the reason Rick called me in.

We looked at one another and shouted: "They opened TAKE ORDERS!!"

You might think this was the first military mess-themed restaurant to open in our lifetime. You would be so wrong. In the mid-nineties in San Francisco, someone actually opened a restaurant called Take Orders. It was in the hip and food-chic mission district, right on 16th Street between the cool little tapas place and the renowned Bretagne crepe place. It had an olive-drab facade, camouflage netting above the entrance and bleak metal tables. It served dorky army-themed food. And it was quite possibly the stupidest restaurant we'd ever seen.

Think about it. A restaurant designed after an Army mess hall, a place that God knows is not known for its fine cuisine. In San Francisco, where hipster liberal foodies are not so much about restaurants glorifying military food service. It was SO ridiculous on so many levels I could spend a whole day lost in thought, wondering who the hell figured they would actually make money on this place.

We never ate there, just mocked it, but believe it or not we did have friends who tried it. (You shall remain nameless, although YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). No surprise, it sucked. It closed after a few months and was replaced by a groovy sushi joint that blasted electronica, a much more fitting establishment.

But Take Orders 2.0 lives on! In Beirut! Somewhere there is some poor schmuck saying, see? It was an idea ahead of its time. Or maybe its the SAME GUY. Maybe this one will fail and they'll just open one up in Baghdad. Third time's a charm!

Greece: It doesn't suck

Greetings from Greece!

I would post using the traditional Greek greeting, but I'm embarrassed to say that I am still not quite sure what it is. I am trying to learn at least a word or two of Greek so not to appear like a complete American ass, but it'll probably take me until the end of the week. So far I've managed to fake "hello" and "thank you." I'm still scared to ask for the check, which sounds something like "I'm having an orgasm." Could be awkward.

We've been here since Friday and I've gotta say this is one of the best vacations I've ever had. Our little boat is, f0r the most part, lovely. We haven't sunk it yet. The islands so far:

Paros: Okay. Kinda boring. But peaceful.
Naxos: Lovely. Great clothes. Nice bars. Excellent liqueur.
Mykonos: Sucked donkey dick. Too many tourists, a shitty port a considerable hike from town, expensive, smelled like poo. Needed to drink all of the liqueur from Naxos in order to cope. Feh. But we did take an excellent jaunt to the sacred island of Delos (ruins o' plenty, by far the highlight of the trip).

And we did have drinks with two very nice 24-year-olds who work for Halliburton (that's right) and make six figs serving cafeteria food to contract workers in Baghdad. Exactly.

Which brings us to Tinos. After the hell that was Mykonos, we just wanted to get the fuck out to somewhere, anywhere. The closest island was Tinos--we knew next to nothing about Tinos--the guidebooks had a few paragraphs about it being a religious pilgrimage site for the Greek Orthodoxy, and that's it. We had not given it much thought, not being into the God stuff, but at this point being Not Mykonos far outweighed any God-hopping that we might encounter.

Turns out--Tinos? Fucking awesome. As opposed to the Mykonos "port" where they didn't even have a power hookup or water, Tinos had a delightful toothless gentleman named Dimitri who met our boat, helped us tie off, offered us myriad services, and did everything but give us a foot massage. We're not sure if he actually works for the port or just has a very excellent scam going (he was scarce when the cops came by), but we gave him 20 euro regardless because he was nice to us. Because we're just that needy. Then we had fucking awesome food and looked at fucking awesome jewelry, and now I'm in this fucking awesome Internet cafe having a cappuccino and killing a little time before a long day of hiking and beaching. It sucks not.

What day is it again?

Technology is evil. Or is it good?

I'm sitting here on the couch in my family room, in front of my nice TV. I'm about to watch a movie....on my computer. You may be thinking to yourself, "Well, that's retarded." And you'd be right. But I'm on a mission and our wacked-out entertainment center configuration will not thwart me.

It's like this: Rick and the kids are back in Indiana with the P's. I'm here, because I just love to work and want to get a few more good days in. Point is, I'm at home. By myself. With a TV. I have about 18 months' worth of films to catch up on. I don't ever, ever watch TV or movies. And it's not because I'm a sanctimonious douche who thinks that television is mind-numbing crap. Hey, my kids watch plenty of TV. They're the only ones. Between work and outdoor activities and kid activities (I guess those aren't mutually exclusive, huh) I barely have time to watch a commercial or a film trailer, let alone a feature-length extravaganza.

So here I am, ready to roll with some popcorn and a copy of Superbad. I turn on all of the apparati and...I have sound! And...that's all I have! No picture. Nuthin. I get cable and a DVD menu soundtrack that promises 90 minutes of unapologetic raunch, but for the life of me, I can't get the DVD picture to come up onscreen. I call Rick. He is marginally helpful but he can't figure it out either.

Okay, I was a bit grumpy on the phone but I'm sorry. Last night I watched There Will Be Blood. Not only did I think that the only impressive thing about it was Daniel Day Lewis' ability to chew scenery like no one else, but god--bummer. I felt like I needed a prozac chaser after that one.

I have had this copy of Superbad since Christmas (thanks Dad!) and I have not been able to carve out two hours to watch it. I've either been surrounded by kids or it's been 3 a.m. So goddammit tonight I'm going to watch something rude and inappropriate or die trying. You can't stop me, demon technology. I'm going to use OTHER technology to make my dream happen. And also to share my experience with people who don't really care about my G-rated hell.

Now where do I put the DVD? And what is this cupholder thing?

Like The Jeffersons, but with more flushing

I just got promoted. I know, yay me.

It's pretty exciting. I've been here less than a year and I'm overjoyed and flattered that the powers that be feel I am ready to go to the next level, or at least I'm ready to fake being ready. That's a huge vote of confidence.

I know I've come a long way in that time. I've gone from a writer of deliverables I'd never created about things I'd never written about to being a subject matter expert in a pretty high-profile area. I've gone from being a lone wolf to being part of a team, and now the boss of really talented and cool people.

But there's another metric I use to gauge that I've really arrived. I think it says it all.

When I started last June, I was assigned to the best cube available. And by that, I mean the best cube available to someone completely lacking in seniority in an office with a fully staffed creative team. I got the toilet cube.

That's right, my cube was right next to the john. Of course, I was not in a position to complain and having worked at home with my children, husband and dog, it's safely established that I can work through anything. (I type this while simultaneously answering a question about the meaning of life for my son and detangling a toy from an embarrassing wealth of twist ties.)

But still. A flush is a flush. And two dozen flushes a day can really rob you of your self esteem and sense of worth in a company. I could hear everything. In consolation, I knew it wasn't as bad as the toilet office on the other side of the building, where it sounded like people were squatting right next to your desk. However, I still had to deal with some less-than-genteel noise, and with people balancing their notebooks and coffee cups and shit on the walls of my cube while they hit the head. I'm a good citizen, though, I figured things would change someday.

A few months after I started, an editor with a bit of seniority left and through a strange twist of good fortune, I became the one with enough longevity points to take over her cube. So I moved a little further from the toilet and closer to the awesome writers with whom I've established a great deal of love over the last 8 months.

The ultimate position of privelege for a non muckety-muck type at my company is a cube by the window. With this exulted spot, you gain a little more natural light and a lovely view of Highway 36 and StorageTek. (The fuckers on the other side get to look at the Flatirons. Not that I'm bitter.)

In the last two weeks, I got promoted and two managerial types with window seats announced that they were respectively leaving and going remote. That meant of course we were losing some amazing talent. But it also meant there were two window spots open. And as a now-manager, I get first crack.

So in less than a year, I've gone from toilet cube to window cube. I don't know if that's a record, but I feel it's significant and I'm pretty proud. Best of all, I get to stay in my row with my peeps, just one seat closer to the window. Win-win.

But I'll never forget where I came from. Every time I hear a flush, I'll think of my roots. It keeps me humble. Movin' on up, indeed.

You talkin' to me, sonny?

Something happened yesterday that left me walking around thinking I'm All That. I was at the light at Pine and Folsom the other day, driving my family truckster. I saw two mountain bikes pull up directly behind my car and observed that the twentysomething guys riding them seemed to be hopping. And waving. They must see someone they know. Whatevs.

Then the bikes pull up next to me. The guys keep waving in my direction. I seriously do the thing where you look around to see if someone else is there receiving the wave. Then I look around and wonder if I have a flat tire or a "Wave if You Think I'm a Jackass" bumper sticker. Nope.

I am used to doing the big city AVOID AVOID AVOID thing, but I had to see what was happening. I looked over and they were definitely waving to me. Trying to get my attention. Because? Call me crazy but I think they actually thought I was cute. The guy closest to me definitely had that "How YOU doin'" look on his face.

I figured that there must be some mistake. I mean, it's me. Do you not see the dueling car seats? Or the crow's feet? Is this Be Nice to a Tired Working Mom Day? As far as I could tell, there was no ulterior motive. Either my windows have some kind of soft lighting filter, or I was lookin' pretty fine. Nice.

They motioned for me to roll down my window. "Are you going left?" the extra-friendly guy asked.
"Yeah."
"Great! So are we!" Mmmmmkay!

Then the moment went from being a mere ego boost to the most hilarious thing that's happened to me this month (granted, it was June 2, but I'm not sure anyone can top this.) The other guy was hopping around on his bike, doing little tricks, basically showing off and smiling at me. Then....he fell right over. Yep. Right on his ass, next to my car. It was the comic timing of the century.

As someone whose motto is, "It's only funny until someone gets hurt...then it's hilarious," it cracked my ass right up. Especially when the guy jumped up with this happy goofball look on his face, arms raised, as if to say, "Hey! I'm okay! Thanks for watching, and be sure to visit the gift shop on your way out!"

Then sadly the light turned green and the floor show was over. We all turned left, but speed separated us. Still, I could see my admirer waving at me as I drove away. It was a golden moment, where I got to feel all hot and stuff and also got to laugh heartily at someone else's misfortune. What could be more perfect than that? I'm still smiling.

I'm off to walk past some construction workers now. I'm on a roll.

"Mom, this vacation sucks"

I got out of jail free this morning to attend a seminar on server and desktop virtualization. It was every single bit as exciting as it sounds. They raffled off a textbook (which I DIDN'T WIN, dammit). And I'm pretty sure the entire first row of attendees speaks Klingon as their first language.

But I appreciated the time away from work. How often does one get the chance to drive across Denver during rush hour to the sleepy hamlet of Greenwood Village? Not often enough, I say.

Anyway, I saw the weirdest thing ever during my bathroom break. As I approached the ladies' room, I heard talking. Okay, fairly normal. And music. Okay, weirder. Then I heard the unmistakable horror that is the Dragon Tales theme song. In the lobby bathroom of the Doubletree Hotel. Um.

Did you know that modern technology allows us to embed a flat TV screen into a bathroom mirror? And that four out of five conventioneers like to watch PBS Kids before and after they take a pee? Okay I made the last one up, but I swear to God. There was a TV in there and it was tuned into wholesomely lame cartoons.

Zack and Weezy, don't forget to wipe!

Why? Why?? I can only think of two valid reasons. One, they want to make sure that you return to your boring virtualization seminar post-haste--no lingering in the bathroom! So they play the most hideous saccharine kids' shows known to man. It's the same logic as playing loud bad music in public restrooms so the homeless don't set up housekeeping, or playing Billy Ray Cyrus full blast in the 7-11 parking lot so those damn kids don't loiter.

Or, it could be this--some vacation resort hotels have Kids' Clubs. If Mom and Dad need a little alone time during the trip, they can drop the kids off at Kids' Club for a combination of babysitting and day camp--swimming, crafts, other fun. Maybe the bathroom TV was the Doubletree's children's program, a poor man's Kids' Club. "Honey, Mommy and Daddy are going out to dinner, just go on into the john and watch PBS until we get back."

Jeez, at least give them Spongebob. After all, it is the bathroom.

Oops, I did it again

D'oh.

I read Maureen Dowd. Again. WHY do I always do that?

When I was a kid, I had a hallucination that I read a hilarious Family Circus cartoon. God, it must have been great. Because every single day, I read Family Circus without fail, thinking that THIS WAS THE DAY it would be hilarious again. And? It wasn't. It painfully, stupidly wasn't. It was the dotted line following Billy around the room, or somebody breaking a vase and blaming it "Not Me!" Har har har. And once again, there were at least 30 seconds of my life that I would never get back.

It's not just me. It's a phenomenon. As the cute drug dealer in the movie Go says, "It's just sitting there on the page, waiting to suck," and I just. Kept. Looking. Eventually I stopped, and never read Family Circus again (except for the sublime and legendary Dysfunctional Family Circus before the lawyers shut it down. Who knew Bil Keane had no sense of humor? Other than everyone who ever read Family Circus?)

What I'm trying to say is, Maureen Dowd is like Family Circus. She's just sitting on the Times op-ed page, waiting to suck. And I fall for it every time, because somewhere in my past, I read a column that was brilliant. Right? Didn't I? I'm sure I did. Anyway, I always read it and I always end up rolling my eyes and wishing I'd just stuck with Paul Krugman.

Actually, on the scale of suck, Wednesday wasn't so bad. Not anything earth-shattering, just the totally unnecessary use of the word Brobdingnagian (to describe finger-wagging? Huh?). And Maureen passing off Art Buchwald's old Marvin K. Mooney joke, which was really funny...when he made it, about 35 years ago. She even acknowledged that it was his, and repeated it, laming it up in her own special way. Sigh.

If there's a dysfunctional parody of Maureen Dowd out there, I'm all over it. Just point the way. With Brobdingnagian finger-wagging.

ALL HAIL SUNFLOWER MARKET

Every day I have a brief moment of silence for the loss of Trader Joe's from my life. At the risk of sounding like one of those annoying city-folk transplants who is always whining, "I reeeeally miss (IKEA, the subway, real bagels, cynicism, etcetera) it does suck to the max that Colorado has zero Trader Joe's presence. I mean, good god, this state probably leads the world in trail mix consumption. Where else are all the rich hippies in Boulder going to shop when they get sick of Whole Foods?

I know that the Colorado liquor weasels blanch at the thought of a store that distributes its own cheap, decent wine. And I also know that there ain't no way Trader Joe's is coming here if they can't sell beer and wine, their bread and butter. But I think I speak for all of the outlanders here when I say that I would gladly give up the Two Buck Chuck to be reunited with my chili spice mango. There is no substitute.

Until now.

Last week, Sunflower Market opened in Boulder. It's not TJ's, but it's pretty darned close. Plastic containers filled with nuts and candy. Tasty produce. Lotsa cheese and crackers. Good stuff.

But wait! It's better! Sunflower has an actual, living breathing meat department, the lack of which was Trader Joe's achilles heel for me. And it also has my new favorite snack--Caramel Corn Puffs. Or as I like to call them, Insane Crack Nuggets. These are basically caramel corn without all that pesky corn. I swear, the only corn in these guys is in the corn syrup that they shellac on the outside of these puffs. I seriously have to have Rick hide them from me or I would eat them continuously. God they're amazing. Thank you, Sunflower Market, for thinking of me in my time of PMS.

Trader Joe's will always have a special place in my heart, but Sunflower now fills the void.

I'm back, and I'm SPARKLY!

So....hi!

By popular demand (hi Kristen) I'm back and making a concerted effort to blog more than once every six weeks. I forgot that many of you are on maternity leave, or don't have jobs, or have jobs and don't want to do them, and reading about the daily workings of my life is the one thing that keeps you going. So I pledge to think of your needs from now on.

Just to catch up, since February I've been through:

A basement remodel
Some snow
A business continuity campaign
A funeral
Florida
Annual objectives
A whopping tax bill

Which brings us to yesterday, and two momentous events: Tea's third birthday party and the delivery of the last of our new furniture, making our house more or less complete. Because I always say, the best time to have furniture delivered is an hour before your daughter's birthday party begins. And the best way to ensure a long life for said furniture is to immediately let a dozen small kids jump on it for a few hours. With and without shoes.

But I in such a state of euphoria brought on by a. having furniture not covered in dog hair and b. having a daughter who is THAT MUCH CLOSER to being potty trained that I could overlook a little couch chaos. A few hundred sticky fingerprints on the Noguchi coffee table? NO PROBLEM. I think margaritas helped this.

Tea's party had an extra special side effect that I didn't expect, yet is completely cool. T got several fancy girly dress-up gifts that had that essential ingredient for 3-year-old fabulousness--glitter, and lots of it. After three hours of Tea strutting through the house in her new fairy wings and pink ballet skirt, our new couches and rug are covered in a layer of fairy dust. Everything sparkles with an extra princessy glint. And you know what? I kinda like it. I think it lends just the right mid-century space-age bachelor pad look to the place. I think I'll keep it.

If Design Within Reach were run by 3-year-old girls...

Next on the interior design agenda: Dora the Explorer. And lots of it.

Crushing on Bobby Fischer

Hey good lookin', come here often?

If you haven't read Dick Cavett's essay/obituary about chess great Bobby Fischer, published yesterday in his Times blog, go there now. (Or rather, go there after you've read every scintillating word of this blog.)

Cavett tells a poignant story about being one of the only people ever to show the world a relaxed, almost jocular side of the notoriously intense and prickly Fischer. Fisher appeared three times on Cavett's show, both just before and just after his legendary match with Boris Spassky in '72. Cavett's account of that time is very moving--I can't do it justice describing it here, just go read it.

On the video clip of Fischer's first appearance, you see a young man who is clearly brilliant, clearly dead serious about his vocation. But behind those eyes you catch a glimmer of humor and even a bit of longing for a chance to step away from his obligations as the world's greatest chess player. To my untrained eye, there's no hint of the raving, paranoid self-hating wack job who came later. In that clip, you almost see a 25-year-old guy like any other. Almost.

What I didn't expect to see is this: In his heyday, Bobby Fischer was a stone fox. I always assumed he was your garden-variety greasy nerd, straight from central casting. But oh, no no. In the Cavett clip he's tall. Broad-shouldered. Wavy hair. Soulful eyes. Full lips. Excuse me, I need to go fan myself.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for tall handsome guys with an IQ of 200.

I feel completely weird crushing out on someone who, in later years, resembled that homeless guy ranting loudly to himself up and down Market Street. In other words, it wouldn't have worked out between us. But if I were an 18-year-old girl in 1971, for two and a half minutes it would have been magic.

Whoops

There's only one picture on this blog right now--it might as well be of puppies

Picasa is a wonderful thing. You can catalog your photos! Create albums! And share them! Wow.

But you know what it's not great for? Telling you that that album of old blog pictures is not just a repository, it's a link to all the photos on your blog. So when you decide that people viewing your public Picasa gallery probably don't want to sift through old photos of a donuts and Japanese pencils, you inadvertently delete all of the pictures in your blog.

This is what we geniuses refer to as a Design Flaw. Whether the flaw is in Picasa or my own brain, that's still up for debate.

Bottom line: can't see the pictures on my blog? Neither can anyone else. The IT staff is working furiously to resolve the issue. Soon, my lovelies, you will once again be able to enjoy such wonders of the world as trucknuts and a squirrel playing a banjo.

Sincerely,

The Management

FOUND!

Oh my god, they found my wallet. The Franklin Covey store called this morning to say that they found it in the parking lot in front of the building and they now have it tucked safely into their safe. Franklin Covey is next to Wahoo's, where I had lunch. I crawled around in that parking lot for at least 20 minutes. And the Franklin Covey store was the only place I didn't check. Go figure.

Maybe it's just a bait and switch. "We don't actually have your wallet, but would you like to buy this lovely wallet/day planner in hand-tooled leather, featuring the inspirational thought of the day? It will make you a better person."

If it makes me a person who doesn't stupidly drop her wallet in the strip mall parking lot and pays her cable bill on time, I may just bite.

I'm off to retrieve my beloved wallet and ask Chris at Franklin Covey how the hell they got my home phone number. Loss of privacy is a small price to pay for becoming a functioning human again.

Paralyzed

I'm writing this from the Laughing Goat. Ordinarily, that would be just a super thing. But in this case, it kinda blows.

I'm here because I have no Internet at home. And no phone. And no cable (No! Not NO CABLE!)

This morning, while Rick was nursing a sick Tea (nursing = putting her on the couch to drink orange juice and watch Dora all day) he noticed that we were in a communication vacuum. Everything was off. Yet, he couldn't call because we didn't have a phone. And he couldn't look up the number online to dial Comcast on his cell. Because, well, you know. So I called them from work, and I guess Rick resorted to some kind of Senor Wences-inspired Dora puppet show to keep Tea from losing it.

The surly Comcast dude informed me that somehow we had missed a payment several months back (did I mention how much I love moving 3 times in four months?) I had somehow skipped over that late payment every month while paying our regular bill. So, voila! No mo service. And now we know the dark side of the Comcast Triple Play--complete isolation.

Anyhoo. I was going to pay the bill over the phone. I reached down for my wallet, and...it wasn't there. It was there when I went to lunch. It was there when I paid for lunch. It was there when I rode back with my friends from lunch. I THOUGHT it was there when I sat down. But it was not. I searched and searched my vicinity, the restaurant, even crawled around in the parking lot to see if it fell anywhere. I searched through at least four garbage cans. But no wallet.

To review: I had no money, no credit cards, no driver's license, no Costco card. I was planning to leave early to relieve Rick from sick duty, and when I got on the road I realized that my empty light was on. That drive to Boulder was a nail-biter to say the least. And once I got home I realized that I also had no way to connect back to work. Because see above.

So here I am at the Laughing Goat, drinking a latte that I bought by scrounging through the couch cushions, working as long as they'll have me and NOT relieving Rick from kid duty even for five minutes. I have no money, no gas and limited communications.

Ever read Johnny Got His Gun? I feel like that guy.

Someone just lost the rodent vote

Soon to be re-branded as Ronco's MISTER SQUIRREL

Please, please give Mike Huckabee his own cooking show. In yet another installment of "You can't make this shit up," the most affable creationist freak I know turned up on the Morning Joe last week before the South Carolina primary and gave the most bizarre rationalization ever why he is The Man of the People in South Carolina.

Apparently, South Carolina is one of those fine places, like West Virginia or Southern Indiana, where squirrels aren't just cute and puffy-tailed--they're good eatin'. Huckabee claimed on the show that he is the candidate of choice for South Carolina because when he gets hungry late at night, he likes himself some squirrel. Not only that, but he devised an ingenious way to cook up our little friends, sort of the inbred toothless version of heating up soup on a hot plate in your dorm room.

And I quote:

"When we were in college we used to take a popcorn popper -- because that was the only thing they would let us have in the dorms -- and fry squirrels in the popcorn popper."

Woo hoo! When's the dinner party, Mike?

Here's the link (because every time I try to embed it I fuck it up):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj3QAzSWVA4

That quote is the first best part. Second best part is Scarborough's retort:

"Sounds good, but I prefer grilling possum on the hood of my Ford Bronco."

Ahahahaha! LOVE.

I have two observations. First, if I were a resident of South Carolina, I'd be a little miffed at Gov. Huckabee for his blanket observation that my peeps and I are all squirrel-chomping yokels. And second, if I may channel Thomas Frank for a moment, if woodland critters are a staple of your diet, perhaps you are voting against your own self interests if you side with the Republicans. (Of course, you may be upper-middle class and just LIKE squirrel meat. Not judging.)

What's the matter with South Carolina?

Nice try, Mike. But I hear Hillary will eat ANYTHING if you dare her.

Marketing the slopes

Gianni and I went skiing at Breck yesterday (Weather: A. Snow coverage: D+. Wind on top: F-). Or rather, Gianni went to ski school from 9 to 3 and I ditched him to ski on my own for 6 hours. I took advantage of my innate ability to go skiing the day before a resort gets huge heaping dumps of snow. Mostly I cruised around on whatever now hadn't been skiied off or otherwise dissipated since the last storm. It was both a great chance to get away from it all and yet another opportunity to remind myself that I'm getting older.

It's not that I can't ski like I used to. I still can. It's that the names of some of these runs are having an adverse affect on me. I used to look at runs with names like The Burn, Boneyard, and Lower Boneyard and think, oh hell yeah. In my younger days, I could go for The Burn from first chair to sundown. But now I look at The Burn and I think, "OWWwwwwww." And let's face it, as a 38-year-old white mother of two, I just feel like an asshole skiing something called "Psychopath."

The thing is, I have no trouble skiing Horseshoe or Cucumber Bowl, even though those are plenty tough. Maybe they just need a renaming campaign aimed at women sliding down the ramp toward middle age. Instead of "The Burn," call it "You Go Girl!" And rechristen "Boneyard" as, "Hooray, My Knees Still Work!"

Naturally they can't really do that because the slopes would strongly resemble a taping of Oprah. So I'll just have to do my own attitude adjustment and admit that after all these years, I'm still pretty much a psychopath.