Pondering

Its been raining like crazy lately, huge storms replete with thunder and lightning and hailstones like gum balls. On the way to the grocery store tonight, I noticed that a huge branch (half a tree, really) had fallen just outside the neighborhood friend's school, blocking the sidewalk in front completely. Which makes me wonder: if a tree falls outside a Quaker school, does it make a sound?

(Insert Wookie Sound Here)

Star Wars Horoscope for Taurus

You are a dependable creature, but you do tend to be stubborn. You like material possessions and love to win at games. You hate being bossed around or losing. You may succumb to your physical strength when upset. Star wars character you are most like: Chewbacca

What Is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

Seriously, though, how would you spell the wookie roar? Mweaaaaaah? Rwea-a-a-a? Mehraaah?

P.S. More information about wookie roars can be found on the internet

[EDITED TO ADD: G-g-g-g-geeaaah?]

How I spent my Wednesday morning

10 Zen Monkeys has posted an article entitled 5 Freaky Muppet Videos complete with YouTube links and videos. If you're anything like me, this'll send you trolling through YouTube for hours, until you finally dissolve into a puddle of tears watching Deborah Harry sing "The Rainbow Connection" with Kermit the Frog.

Words fail him

From Salon.com's War Room:

What Americans really think of Bush

Twice a year, pollsters for the Pew Research Center ask Americans to say the "one word that best describes" their "impression of George W. Bush." As late as February 2005, the top two volunteered responses were "honest" and "good." The new top two: "incompetent" and "arrogant."

"Honest" has fallen to No. 3. Rounding out the top 10: "good," "idiot," "integrity," "leader," "strong," "stupid" and "ignorant." "Ass" checks in at No. 13, "president" sits at No. 18, and "unconfident" brings up the rear at No. 32.

-- Tim Grieve

What's funny to me is that the pollsters don't prompt at all -- they just ask for one word (and accept two, but don't prompt for the second). And since the last election, the list of words that jump out of people's mouths at the sound of his name has just been getting longer and longer, with nineteen words between "honest" and "selfish" in February 2004 and thirty one between "incompetent" and "tough" in March 2006. The longer the man's in office the harder it gets to sum up just what the American people think of him.

Socks and Monsters

For a few months now, Brian has been contemplating the aquisition of some argyle socks. As with all major life changes, this sartorial switcheroo has been carefully pondered, researched, discussed with friends and significant others. "I've been thinking about getting some argyle socks," he said to me one day. "I think they'd go nicely with all the corduroy I've been wearing."

Of course, not everyone was supportive. Our friend Jason called them old man socks. I just teased and brought it up (repeatedly) over dinner with friends.

So the weeks went by, and like many people finding themselves at life's crossroads, Brian stalled out for a while. H&M's socks had skulls on them. The socks at the fancy shoe store near our house were twenty bucks a pop. Then he needed a new hard drive, and then a new planer. And the Search for Sock fell by the wayside, for the most part. So far, he only has one pair (selected for him, as a gesture of support, by the aforementioned Jason). But argyle remains a funny little obsession with him, and it's become one of our little rituals: window shopping wherever we go, looking for argyle socks, and then judging said socks on various criteria to determine whether or not they are in fact the argyle that he is looking for (pink and brown argyle will not do. Neither will argyle impersonaters that lazily substitute mere diamond shapes for the more complex traditional pattern. I'm looking at you, Donna Karan).

Anyway. That's that.

Today Brian and I went to the grocery store twice -- once for dinner things and once for juice. On the way back with our dinner things (pasta sauce has been on sale lately, it's all we eat. Well, we put it on pasta), Brian and I started talking about cats, and how he'd read this article about this parasite common in domesticated cat poo that causes "mass personality changes" in affected populations, the most consistent being "guilt proneness (a form of neuroticism)." Apparently when this same parasite makes its way into rats, it causes the rats to become "active, less cautious and more likely to be eaten by a cat, where the parasite completes its life cycle." And Brian was telling me that this isn't the only parasite like this! There's another one that affects ants, and needs to complete its life cycle inside a sheep. So it actually causes ants to climb up stalks of grass so that they'll be chomped up! Just like that!

So, yeah. Apparently Brian's infected with some sort of argyle parasite. It's just not ready to complete the cycle yet. And pink and brown just won't do.

Poor Brian. This is what he gets for bugging me to update my blog more.

In other news

It's time to give the cat his monthly flea treatment.



The first time we tried to do it (a mere dab of Frontline between the shoulder blades), he howled so loud and long that I worried our upstairs neighor would think we were strangling the little guy. And for months after, just the merest waft of fleagle treatment was enough to send the clawed beastie scurrying for the cat door. But these last few months, we've had it down to a science: one of us distracts the Monster with pets and treats while the other -- in the next room -- cracks open the dread treatment. Then while the boheamoth's attention is elsewhere, squirt! Another thriving flea metropolis is no more.

Hello, you.

Oh, it's been too long. After last November's post-every day challenge, I swore I'd never neglect this blog again. So easy, this posting every day! So rewarding! So connected to the outside world I was! But then November was over. And with nothing to say and no reason to say nothing anyway, posting fell by the wayside.

So, what have I been up to? Hard to say. Teaching, but I don't want to discuss that too much on these here internets (my students are all web-literate, as are my bosses). Writing, but nothing too noteworthy (click here for some oldish news). Organizing my vaguely ordered stacks of paper into actual labeled and color-coded files. Updating my CV and dreaming of full-time work. The mundane day to day of growing up, in other words.