Hola!

What a lovely welcome-home gift, for my return from Florida to be greeted with Florida-type weather here in Chicago. Usually it's a harsh slap in the meteorological face (what?) when a Midwesterner comes home from a warmer clime. On the down side, I always like a 20-degree advantage when I vacation outside of the summer months. It's such a rip-off to expend money and no small effort just to get the same weather the folks have for free back home. At least the Midwest in April is not conducive to swimming outdoors or going to the beach, so I've got that.

This was a low-key vacation. One of our few vacationy events was taking a river "cruise" followed by dinner. Ben pronounced the cruise to be boring, the lowlight of the trip, and the restaurant sucked. But check this out: We grown-ups (me, Mr. Tangerine, and the mister's aunt) each ordered a glass of wine. The waitress deemed the aunt and me to be clearly over 21, but Mr. Tangerine? Carded. He just turned 40, sure, but apparently he could pass for 20. Or 19. My teen husband. Father of my almost-6-year-old kid. (I feel like a virtual Mary Kay Letourneau.) The lesson here is that without his Transforming Paste, Mr. Tangerine's hair goes crazy and he looks like a kid. (A hot one, if I do say so myself.) We weren't sure which of us should be more offended, him for getting carded or me for not getting carded when he did. Anyone? (I take solace in the fact that I was carded myself some weeks back.)

We flew home last night, and when we reached Baggage Claim Carousel 5, there were a dozen stacks of empty luggage bins making their way around the track. Soon they were joined by some luggage...and more stacks of bins. Eventually there were about 30 stacks of bins on the carousel, and they started getting bunched up where the conveyor belt goes back behind the wall. Two responsible passengers took it upon themselves to hoist stack after stack of bins to clear the logjam and keep the bags moving. I wasn't sure if it looked more like something out of "I Love Lucy" (the chocolates) or "Candid Camera"...but no film crew ever emerged to laugh at those people. Say what you will about United Airlines (try not to curse too much, dears), but I gotta say I prefer United to American. American's half ounce of pretzels sucks, man. And United's flight attendants make far more trips up and down the aisle to gather up empty cans, cups, and snack bags. American, they made us fester amid our measly snack-related debris. (Who, me? Petty? Nah.)

I haven't downloaded my pictures yet, but I did get a lovely photo of the Badcock home furnishings sign. (I still don't know what possessed the Badcock family not to choose a business name like "Furniture of Distinction.") We didn't make it into downtown Inverness, which is where "The Daily Show" taped the segment on the Cooter Festival and where I had seen the "save a fish, eat a cooter" shirt in a barbershop window. Another time, perhaps...

Technical matters

I'd planned to be blogging regularly from vacation, but dudes, the place I'm staying has a dial-up connection. At this very moment, I am blocking incoming calls to a relative's house. So...it's lame. I'm back down by my in-laws' part of Florida, where they have the "Save a Fish, Eat a Cooter" t-shirts, where there's a U-Kill-Em do-it-yourself pest control store, and where there is a furniture store called Badcock. I'm going to try to get a picture of it this time. "Badcock! No biscuit!"

Have been to a small beach at the Gulf of Mexico, not very spring-breaky. Although there were six college boys in board shorts playing football on the beach, one with a nice build and five scrawny guys. (One was a dead ringer for Screech of "Saved by the Bell.") Anyway, shirtless guys wrestling each other to the sand? Is it just me or is that vaguely homoerotic?

Sorry the word-verification thing is back. I turned it off to see if the internet's miscreants would leave me be, but the spambots leave more comments than my lovely readers, so you're back to having to type in things like frkjnqww.

Time for dinner. Toodles, dears!

Still coughing

You know the hard thing about having a powerful cough after you've had a kid? It makes you wish you did Kegels regularly. If I'm standing up when a cough strikes, I have to cross my legs. I'm doing a helluva job, if you don't mind my saying so, avoiding the disgorgement of anything other than phlegm when I cough. Still haven't barfed or peed my pants. I do sometimes feel a little light-headed right after I cough, though, and it tastes terrible—am I dying, DoctorMama? Should I call my physician?

My client warned me that this is the respiratory virus that gives you a cough that lasts for nearly a month, so I've got about three weeks to go. She also said I should take an antihistamine, which I thought sounded odd, but that recent consensus statement from the pulmonary specialists seems to say not only that over-the-counter cough suppressants are largely useless, but that taking an antihistamine and decongestant may help with an infection-related cough. You know what? I think it does help. So if you get hit with the whammy cough—cough starts first, then the cold symptoms follow—there is hope. Have a Benadryl and a decongestant. If you don't want to sign over your first-born child to score some pseudoephedrine (come on! quit sniffling! you're not sick, you just want to cook some meth! we can see it in your eyes!), try the phenylephrine. It works just fine for me.

Wow. Worst post ever! But hopefully useful if you're coughing.

It's a good thing

...that Mr. Tangerine is at the office most of the day. This cough I've got, it's at its worst when I laugh. And Mr. Tangerine has a terrible habit of being funny. Here's the sequence:

He cracks wise.

I laugh.

My lungs go into paroxysms of coughing.

I almost throw up.

I haven't puked...yet. But I've come mighty close. Does anyone know how to make a man unfunny while a respiratory infection runs its course? Should I seek medical attention? Or should I just knock Mr. Tangerine out? Maybe try earplugs?

It's hard out there for a worm

Walking Ben to school in a downpour (or, in Ben's lingo, a pourdown) this morning, I discovered the sidewalk was adorned with stretching and squirming earthworms flushed out of the mud. How many might I have squished before I realized they were there? Poor worms. Once I saw them, I was careful to step around them, clearing my worm karma à la "My Name Is Earl." You see, when I was 4 or 5 years old, I once collected worms on a rainy day. I plucked the worms out of their puddly milieu and put them in the pocket of my raincoat. And what a raincoat it was! A clear vinyl shell showing the fabric liner with pretty pink flowers. I do not recall whether the pockets were clear and revealed their contents to the casual observer, or if my mother had to wait for the smell of dried-up worms to waft out of the jacket before she knew there was some cleaning to do.

Worm karma? Worma.

"It's the plumber"

Remember the classic cartoon from The Electric Company in which the plumber arrives at a house and knocks or rings the doorbell, and the parrot asks, "Whooo is it?" The plumber replies, "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." But the parrot never says anything but "Who is it?" So the plumber becomes increasingly apoplectic that no one will let him into the house. After several go-rounds of this, the plumber collapses in a fit of rage. Then an old lady comes home, discovers him lying there, and gasps, "Who is it?" The parrot answers, of course, "It's the plumber. He's come to fix the sink." (Ba-dump!)

We had some water pipe work done in my condo building last week, which unleashed all manner of sediment in the pipes and sent the sediment into the filter dealies in our kitchen faucets, diminishing the water pressure to sad levels. One round of cleaning out the faucets last week didn't do the trick, because there was plenty more sediment remaining. So the plumbers came back yesterday to tend to our faucets. The two who came to my kitchen were an old, grizzled, seemingly dim one...and a strikingly cute young one who inspires thoughts of cheesy porn movies. Even with the mustard-gold coveralls, a matching hat, and a bulky coat, that face was obvious in its cuteness. (I bet he gets hit on a lot when he makes solo house calls.)

I was talking to Lisa on the phone after the plumbers left, when my doorbell rang. (Poetic license—the "doorbell" is actually a raucous buzzer that frightens my mother when she's here.) "Hang on a sec, Lisa. Who is it?"

"It's the plumber," said the handsome boy. "I've come to ravish you." No, wait, he didn't say that. "I've come to fix the sink." No, wait, he already fixed my sink. Actually, he said, "I need to leave a bill in the mailbox." Reality bites.

(Lisa said I had to blog about this, because she waited fruitlessly for a hot contractor when she had her home office redone last year. But Lisa's a troublemaker, she is. She used to regularly write "Fantasy Friday" posts, and I came across this one, UPS Man, in the archives. I've had the same UPS man for almost a decade, and he is kinda hot. It was embarrassing to open the door to the UPS guy after I read that story...)

Orange ascending

Hey, hey! I'm pleased with how I did at the crossword tournament. Those of you who know who I am can find my name in the rankings, and those of you who don't can continue wondering. (I like a degree of anonymity, I do. But I was kicking ass and taking names.)

I had a great time, and spent scarcely any time in my hotel room. There was carousing to carry out, maximal mingling, a soupçon of drinking, extended social intercourse...plus crossword puzzles. Who has time to sleep, or watch TV, or unpack? I hung out with some of the folks who were at Sundance in January, caught up with other old internet-based friends, met plenty of new people, chatted with drunken individuals both charming and off-putting. (This one broad was taller than me, and she kept looming into my personal space in a drunken stupor. I don't object to drunken stupors—just don't be a space-invading close-talker who smells like an ashtray. You know what I'm saying?)

I have always found myself to be utterly unaware of any direct ogling of my bosom. It must happen from time to time, but either I'm oblivious or I inspire a subtle approach. But at one of the parties, my rack was overtly ogled by a leader in the crossword field, who at least was forthright enough not to deny it. It was...odd. I daresay I prefer the covert ogle.

I met "Jeopardy!" überchampion, Ken Jennings, who was competing at the tournament. He did quite well for a rookie...but not as well as I did in my first year at the tournament. I ranked way ahead of him. (Hah! Bragging rights! Who needs $2.5 million anyway?) He was a little taller and cuter in person, and seemingly not at all insufferable. He had thoughtful remarks in his speech at the awards luncheon, and he was the one reading off names of all the prize winners (a certain citrus fruit included).

You want to know how smart the tournament crowd is? I think there were about a dozen people there who've been on "Jeopardy!" before, and there will assuredly be more. Ain't that cool? If you're not quite geeky enough to appreciate that, then frankly, I'm not sure why you even read my blog. Seriously.

Also, Wordplay will be opening in NYC on June 16, LA on June 23, and in roughly the top 25 markets on June 30 (Fourth of July weekend). If you live in a top-25 city, tell your friends! Those opening-weekend box office numbers are crucial, you know, and if the movie doesn't do well then, then those of you in smaller markets won't get a chance to see it in your area. So if you're in a big city, go see the movie on opening weekend! Take the opportunity to ogle my rack from the privacy of your plush movie seat!

Heading out

One more day and a night before I fly to Stamford, Connecticut, for this year's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Now, nobody's filming a Major Motion Picture of the documentary persuasion at the tournament this time—but there will be a sneak preview of said Motion Picture at the tournament, so I'll get to see Wordplay for the third time. Hooray! Will it ever get old, seeing a movie with people I know in it, with a few moments of me onscreen? I hope not.

I just bought a laptop today (I blame Lisa—she's a ba-a-a-ad influence!), so it's possible I will blog from the East Coast. It's also possible I'll be too busy—not because of the crosswords themselves (those will occupy only a couple hours of my attention), but because of the social whirlwind. Yes, word geeks have social whirlwinds, too. The tournament is a place where we can wield our $15 words and never be met with a blank stare. I know a ton of frightfully intelligent people, I do—but you get 500 crossword nuts together in a hotel ballroom, and the air crackles with synaptic connections.

Anyway, last year I placed in the top 20. I'd like to make the top 10 this year, but there are a number of determined individuals who will endeavor to fill those 10 spots themselves. If I stay in the top 20 and I have a grand old time, I'll consider the weekend a raging success. If I plummet in the standings but still have a good time, still a success. If I have a sucky time and don't do well in the competition, then, duh.

If you quit checking the comments on the nutty search post, head back and read the horrifying poem E. has crafted...

Another blogger meet-up

I love meeting far-flung bloggers in person. So far I've met flea, JT, Dr. B, the Feral Mom, Lisa, ding, and Stella from this blogroll—and yesterday, DoctorMama and I had brunch.

The good doctor and I went to M. Henry instead of the restaurant called Orange because I'd heard Orange makes you wait 1 to 2 hours for a table on weekends. Horrors! So we went to the other place and waited...for an hour. (They're expanding in another week, and god knows they could use the extra capacity.) It was nice to spend some time in the sun, hungry or no, and the conversation was superb. I've not been disappointed by any blogger meet-ups to date, and I wish I could meet everyone else, too, because I know the conversation would flow if you could just peel us away from our keyboards and put us in the same city.

DoctorMama endeared herself to me eternally when she began perusing the menu and announced that she was ruling out various dishes based on their ingredients—which is exactly my approach to every restaurant menu. I'm nowhere near the picky eater I once was, but I'm going to filter out any and all of the following: red meat, shellfish, broccoli, mustard, eggplant, mango/papaya/guava, Swiss cheese, tuna, green or red peppers, red wine, mushrooms, celery, olives, an overreliance on the onion family, peas, cooked cauliflower, overly salty stuff, sushi, and more than a minimal amount of mayonnaise. That may sound super-picky, but I swear I eat a lot of different foods—just not much of those particular ones (I'll eat spicy samosas with a few peas in them, or potatoes aioli). I had scrambled eggs with house potatoes and toast—and those damn potatoes had regular onions, green onions, red peppers, and green peppers. I could've eaten them (after scraping off the unwanted bits) if they hadn't spent too much time being blackened in the kitchen. (Grr.) I ordered eggs because I felt like having a little protein for a change, but I should've copied DoctorMama and opted for sweet carbs. The lemon/raspberry French toast looked good...but I don't like too much lemon. I always rule out lemon desserts. And quit mocking me. It's a very efficient way of choosing from a menu. Mr. Tangerine is basically willing to eat everything, so he has a much tougher time choosing a dish.

By the way, DoctorMama's broken-by-the-kid, reset-by-herself nose looks perfectly fine. Her history as a household prizefighter is not readily apparent to the observer. Also, she has great hair.

After brunch, I drove DoctorMama back downtown to her hotel (insert the parking misadventure of your choice here) and came in to meet la familia DoctorMama. AngelBaby is adorable, with big brown eyes and an agreeable nature (to hear it from him, yes, they did see pink gorillas at the aquarium). TrophyHusband has great eyes, too, and a nice smile; he shared an anecdote concerning a quasi-colleague recently eaten by a crocodile (no kidding). And the parents who spawned DoctorMama are also lovely people, doting on AngelBaby while Mama went to brunch.

Then when I finally went home, Ben greeted me with a bear hug...and the announcement that he liked it better when I was gone because he and Daddy rocked the house with video games. (Hmph.)

Okay, let's be interactive. If you're not an omnivore like Mr. Tangerine, what foods do you instantly rule out? And if you are an omnivore, go ahead and pat yourself on the back. What's that? You patted yourself on the back four paragraphs ago because you were feeling superior? Yeah, I knew it. You omnivores always think you and your undiscerning palates are better than everyone else.

Anatomy for kindergartners

Because I will be brunching with the eminent physician DoctorMama tomorrow, today's post touches on the topics of anatomy and physiology. (I am still trying to decide if we should eat at a place called Orange—no shit! a restaurant called Orange! specializing in brunch!—that I've never been to, or a tried-and-true joint called M. Henry that my friends and I like. The Orange place serves frushi, which is fruit and rice done up sushi-style. Both restaurants offer grown-up breakfast food containing chocolate, so we can't go wrong either way. You know what's going to happen, right? Those of you who read this blog and DoctorMama's know what we're gonna look at. I'm going to be inspecting her butt to see if it's as nonexistent as she claims, and she's going to look about a foot beneath my eyes.

Without further ado, anatomy and physiology, kindergarten style:

Ben is fascinated by the process of digestion. He enjoys studying the pictures in various anatomy books, and he likes to have What Happens to a Hamburger read aloud to him. While he has a good basic grasp of what goes on, at times the details get a little fuzzy. A few days ago, he said something like, “And then the food goes into the uterus,” as if the womb was but a way station between the stomach and colon.

The next morning, he was again outlining where food goes after it’s eaten. “And then it goes into the intesticles,” he explained.

Perhaps it's time to have an in-depth discussion of the reproductive bits? Ben loves the concept of the fetus getting its nourishment via the umbilical cord, but he envisions a baby slurping on a flexible straw coming out of its bellybutton. I can't help but think that not-yet-six is a tad young to be learning a lot about these things, but maybe the boy is ready. What do you think?

Laughing what off?

A year ago, I railed against LOL and ROTFLMAO. I am pleased to report that there's another convert to the crusade: The Assimilated Negro does not like ROTFLMAO. At all.

You know what's unfortunate? That those cheesy abbreviations and even cheesier emoticons sometimes offer the most expedient way of conveying certain feelings in writing. We need new fonts. Like the Ironic font, so dimwitted readers won't misunderstand. (I somehow doubt that TAN is truly riled up by rampant deployment of ROTFLMAO. The people who think the term actually makes him mad could have benefited from the Ironic font.) The Amused font, so that you can simply reply to something without explicitly expressing your amusement—the font will tell the reader that you may have laughed aloud or may have been silently amused; the location of any laughter (floor or elsewhere) and the status of one's ass (on or off) need not be spelled out.

Something must be done, really. I can only write Heh. so many times before I'm mistaken for a pale, estrogenic James Brown. Solutions, anyone?

I can't help myself

Whenever someone writes about the nutty search queries that have led people to their blog, I can't resist delving into my Site Meter records and seeing what my random readers are hoping to find here. Today, it was tootsie roll's guest post at Bored Housewife that provided that temptation. I really don't know why four people searched for bloody heads, and why they uselessly clicked on the link for Orange Tangerine in their pursuit of bloody head–related information. And several orthographically impaired individuals searched for swimwere. Yes, I made fun of a motel swimming pool sign with a misspelling, but no, I have no further details pertaining to "swimwere." Swimwerewolf? Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Swimwererabbit?

Here are some other lively ones. Try not to think about them too much:

am kingdom hairy
brazilian wax codeine
end a sentence with me
i built up my butt but it shrank again
intellectual boredom
love bulge
menopausal farting
mister rogers flip the bird
morning call thinking about cremation
nipples turned orange
orange snot sinus
organic milk zits
poo averages
rate my spooge
small orange balls discharge after ejaculation
some sad depressing horrifying poems
what does it mean if my poo is orange
what's the largest pencil?
why don't guys have butts?

Google Image meme

I grabbed this memey thing from Ellen: Use the picture you like best from the first (no clicking around for 44 pages) page of the search results on Google Image.

1. The city and state of the town you grew up, no quotation marks.

Three years ago, my hometown became a meteorite strewnfield, for real.

2. The town where you currently reside.

Aw, pretty.

3. Your name, first and last, but again, no quotes.

I'll pass.

4. Your grandmother's name.

Shriners!

5. Your favorite food.

chocolate raspberry, an irresistible combination.

6. Your favorite drink.

Honest.

7. Your favorite smell.

Surprised?

The contest is over!

Yesterday, JT and I took our boys out to Flea's house to cook, eat, and judge the dishes entered into the Embarrassing Dinner contest. The kids played in the backyard (the threatened rain didn't materialize until later), enjoying the unseaonably warm weather. Flea's husband Steve made himself scarce, and us womenfolks stayed in the kitchen (only Flea was barefoot, and none of us is pregnant), cooking all afternoon. As you can see in Flea's results post, we had a great time. It's always a laff riot when Flea and JT and I get together, but it was a near miracle that we didn't wet our pants from laughing so hard. The blurry photos are those taken when the person holding the camera was snorting, guffawing, or otherwise expressing deepest amusement.

What I learned:

• Nearly everything of a casserolish nature looks utterly disgusting at some point before it goes into the oven, and sometimes afterwards as well.

• Kids go nuts for hot dogs cut to look like octopi, and for green food. The nut has a zillion kid-tested ideas for quick-and-easy kid meals, and I think she ought to post them all at her blog, amid the political posts.

• Cooking is more fun with beer at hand.

• My child is an incredibly undiscerning eater. He was the only kid who was willing to try everything, and he even had extra helpings of the Jackpot Casserole and Cheesy Potatoes. (This amazed Flea and JT. But I take no credit for Ben's adventruous palate. He gets it from Mr. Tangerine, who has eaten Rice Krispies treats with mashed potatoes on top, and mac and cheese with raspberry vinaigrette mixed in.) Ben rubbed his belly and said "Mmm, delicious!" upon his first bite of everything, pronounced everything "super good," and was reluctant to play favorites. I swear this boy is going to end up in politics or sales when he grows up. He's a natural people-pleaser and schmoozer.

Edited to add the recipes (annotated):

Smussyolay's Cheesy Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 16 oz container sour cream
1 1/2 bags of frozen, shredded hash browns (approx 2 lbs?)—we used one 30 oz bag of Ore-Ida hash browns)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 stick of butter/margarine
4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (more to taste)

Directions:

Get greased pan/foil pan. Put hash browns in a large bowl. Melt butter. Add sour cream, mushroom soup, and melted butter to hash browns (mix the butter with the other goop first so it doesn't freeze solid amid the hash browns). Mix. Mix. Mix, until all hash browns have been covered in the ingredients. This is a slightly tedious process and may take awhile. Slowly add cheese once things are somewhat moist.

Put in oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour. You want them to be solid and slightly browned. You can add crunchy things on top like potato chips or those shoestring onions. (We didn't add crunchies, and there was really no browning. I recommend adding a brownable, crunchable topping; my sister likes this with crumbled corn flakes on top. Whatever you do, don't skip that sour cream. Yum!)

Midwestern Deadbeat's Mama's Chicken Pot Pie

4 c. chicken breasts, cooked and chopped (that's maybe about 5–6 chicken breasts)
1 c. chicken broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can Veg-All mixed vegetables

1 stick margarine, melted (we used butter)
1 c. milk
1 c. self-rising flour
1 t. baking powder

Mix first group together and pour in 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. Mix second group together and pour on top. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees. (I think this recipe could use more seasoning. Despite all the canned stuff, amazingly, it wasn't too salty. But maybe add some black pepper. Also, we forgot this in the oven and cooked it about 15 extra minutes—didn't burn at all.)

Jen's Jackpot Casserole

1/2 c. chopped onions
1 T oil
1 package (20 oz) of ground turkey
1 can tomato soup
1 c. water
1/2 package egg noodles
8 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 can creamed corn

In large saucepan, saute onions in oil for 3 mins. until soft. Add turkey, can of soup, water, and noodles. Cook until noodles begin to get tender. Add creamed corn and shredded sharp cheddar cheese until just mixed. Pour into casserole and bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. (The menfolk seasoned their servings liberally with hot sauce or pepper flakes.)

South Dakota ban hits close to home

The South Dakota Legislature has opted to ban abortion in all circumstances except to save the life of the pregnant woman. Not to preserve the woman’s health. Not to end a pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.

Let me tell you what the South Dakota abortion ban would mean to me if I lived in South Dakota and got pregnant.

If I were to become pregnant, it would probably not be life-threatening to me—if I received plenty of medical attention from a perinatologist (weekly appointments sufficed during my first pregnancy, but I might need more intensive monitoring for a subsequent pregnancy), if I followed my doctor’s instructions to the letter, if I took assorted prescription medications, and if I called my doctor promptly if anything seemed amiss. Sure, I’d probably end up in the hospital a few times, the baby would be born very prematurely, and my health would suffer greatly (I’m talking about organ failure here) over the long term, but I probably wouldn’t die so long as I was a model patient and my doctor was a model physician. Sure, my lifespan might well be shortened as a result of the pregnancy-related complications, but I probably wouldn’t die within nine months of conception. Under South Dakota law, termination would not be an option for me, despite the clear and present danger to my health.

You might say, “Well, if your health concerns you that much, then you just have to make sure you never get pregnant.” I do have an IUD, but those aren’t absolutely 100% effective (very close, though). “So why doesn’t your husband get a vasectomy?” Well, that posits that he’s the only man with sperm. If he got a vasectomy, that would do nothing to prevent a rapist from attacking me. “Why don’t you get your tubes tied, then?” From my perspective, my body has enough problems already; I hesitate to assume the medical risks associated with a completely elective surgical procedure. I hope never to become pregnant again, although I wouldn’t mind having another child—but if I did get pregnant, I’d seek an abortion.

I know most of my readers are pro-choice, but there may be a few of you who don’t object to South Dakota’s abortion ban and its lack of an exception for preserving the woman’s health. Such a law sends the message that my life isn’t worth it, that my life and health don’t matter, that an embryo has more right to a full lifespan than I do. I beg to differ. If you don’t support a woman’s right to choose abortion, if you think preserving a woman’s health isn’t a good enough reason for abortion—tell me why you'd want me to die early.

[Note: I also strongly support the right to abortion in cases where the woman’s health is not at stake—I deplore all aspects of the South Dakota statute. Other circumstances are beyond the scope of this short personal essay, however.]

Peak experience

What is a peak experience? How does one define bliss? I have an example.

It was almost 50 degrees out when I picked Ben up from school, so instead of heading straight home, we went for a long walk around the neighborhood. He practiced some balance-beam walking at one of the school playgrounds. We inspected various forms of nature. We discussed real estate values and window design. We took a nostalgic walk past his old school (and waved at his pre-K teachers hard at work). We played "catch the droplet" beneath a dripping downspout (sounds gross, but doesn't water clean itself during a three-story fall? and I told him to keep his mouth closed).

Ben was dragging his feet the closer we got to our street. Home to homework, home to the regular routine? He wanted to stay out. We got to the street just northwest of ours and discovered a bonanza: a backhoe and a cement mixer truck, men at work. It wasn't a major job—they'd cut and jackhammered a narrow trench and laid down some phone cables or something, and were beginning to fill the trench with fresh wet concrete. So we watched from the sidewalk as the lumpy gray pudding filled the trench and a man with a shovel smoothed it out a bit. When the trench was filled, a Teamster rinsed the truck and stowed the halfpipe pieces. (And no, I don't know if cement mixers use snowboard terminology.) Another worker clambered up into the driver's seat of the backhoe and whizzed around the tiny side street like a madman, shoving giant metal plates across the pavement to cover the freshly filled trench.

When the backhoe operator (who's got two boys of his own) was down to his last couple plates, he asked Ben if he wanted to do some work. So he pulled Ben up into the cabin onto his knee, and the fellas got to work. Ben was up there for less than five minutes, but I think that was plenty. When he climbed down, the look on his face was one of sheer bliss. My child was full of happy love for Mommy because he was now a backhoe operator. These were the happiest hugs he's ever bestowed, bar none. (The greeting he gave me after I spent five days out of town at Sundance? That was nothing compared with this.) If Ben had ever seen Jerry Maguire, I'm sure he'd have told the construction equipment, "You complete me." A boy and a backhoe. Could there be a sweeter pairing than that?

Sheer bliss.

Redirect

Today's post is a guest post I wrote for Lisa's blog, Bored Housewife, so follow me over there today. The subject is fantasies...

Hemorr-Ice!

Dude, I got carded tonight when I ordered a Leinenkugel Red with dinner. Carded! At age 38...ish. Heh.

Speaking of heh, I came across a small sheet of product instructions over at my grandma's place today. Have you ever heard of Hemorr-Ice? This handy product is still available!? In short, Hemorr-Ice is an ice pack designed to reach hemorrhoids. It's the world's tiniest buttplug, and you store it in your freezer. When your 'roids are ailing you, take your Hemorr-Ice out of the freezer, lube it up, and stick it up your bunghole "for 2 to 5 minutes, depending upon the severity of your case." Does that sound a bit shocking? Don't worry—"The discomfort is short-lived and harmless." Then you wash it ("thoroughly with soap and warm water") and pop it back in the freezer for next time. (And please, don't mistake it for a popsicle.)

How long will the treatment take, doctor? "In general, the treatment period for Hemorr-Ice is two insertions per day, morning and evening"—say, with breakfast and then for dessert after dinner—"for one to two weeks. More severe cases may take as long as one month."

Helpful hint for parents: I bet Hemorr-Ice works wonders for the teething baby as well. (Although be mindful of the choking hazard it may pose.) Hemorr-Ice: Good for the whole family!

Four Things

Okay, Mignon tagged me for the Four Things meme. I haven’t really been reading these when various people have posted theirs, but hell, I’ve got to post something, so let’s do the meme.

Four jobs I've had:

• College cafeteria dishroom lackey (temporarily burned off my fingerprints)
• Video store clerk (they rented porn, too)
• College library Finder of Lost Books
• Editorial assistant

Four movies I can watch over and over:

• Sixteen Candles
• When Harry Met Sally…
• The Arrival
• The Sure Thing

Four places I've lived:

• Chicago, IL
• Park Forest, IL
• Northfield, MN
• Sorry, that’s it—but there were multiple abodes in each of those locales

Four places I've been on vacation:

• Prague, Czech Republic
• Orlando, FL, over and over
• Whistler, BC
• Driving through central and Northern California

Four websites I visit daily:

• Bitch Ph.D.
• One Good Thing
• Bored Housewife
• Chicago Tribune

Four of my favorite foods:

• Raspberries
• Chocolate
• Mashed potatoes with plenty of butter
• Skim milk
• Peanut butter (yeah, I know that’s five)

Four places I'd rather be:

• In bed with Mr. Tangerine, the kid asleep down the hall
• Anywhere balmy and peaceful, say, 72 degrees and mostly sunny
• On vacation somewhere I’ve never been (a tropical island, a European capital…)
• Sitting in a restaurant with close friends, having good food, conversation, and wine

Four bloggers I'm tagging:

• Mona
• The Feral Mom
• The Nut
• DoctorMama

Today's anatomy lesson

Today's lesson in female anatomy comes from Susie Bright's post about the G-spot. G-spot factoid I did not know: "If you're rubbing it in the absence of arousal, NOTHING will happen. You will yawn." Get started first, then tend to the G-spot.

Susie links to the G-Spot Center, which offers facts, how to, positions, testimonials, toys, and other resources. If you are a woman or you ever plan to be intimate with one, you might do well to read up. But maybe not at work—there are NSFW illustrations that, while they might be educational for your boss, maybe you don't want to be caught looking at on the company dime.

Recipe contest!

Hey! My friend flea is having an Embarrassing Dinner contest. This arose out of flea's post about dishes made with assorted "cream of" soups—objectively terrifying foods that you love anyway for nostalgic reasons. Flea's grandmother specialized in Broccoli Casserole with cream of mushroom soup; mine made us grilled cheese sandwiches exclusively with Velveeta.

If you'd like to enter an Embarrassing Dinner recipe you love (rule #1: "It must be something you have actually prepared and eaten, that you love."), head over to flea's contest post and leave your recipe in the comments. Flea, JT, and I will be the judges who select the three best recipes, and within the next two weeks, we'll get together to cook those three dishes, attempt to eat them, and try to persuade our children (ages 6, 6, 5, 3, and 3—JT's baby is hereby excused since he's not big on solids yet) to taste them.

Fresh ingredients play little part in the truly Embarrassing Dinner (see rule #2). Rule #3 is no red meat; flea and I won't eat it. Feel free to substitute veggie/soy/tofu/turkey/chicken replacements for anything in the beef or pork family.

Oh! I suppose you want to know what the prize is. The grand prize is an informative videotape entitled Fuck Your Way to Fitness and a "mildly alarming" sex toy (flea is the proprietor of the Honeysuckle Shop, of course). The two runners-up will receive as-yet-undetermined prizes.

P.S. The submission deadline is March 7, so you still have time to dig up your favorite Embarrassing Dinner!

Hey, womenfolk

Anyone else have a landing strip?

Spam is so boring

Lately, all my spam has been so dull. Most spams are "from" a person with a crazy first name (like Ernesztina or Nickolethia) and no last name, and they're 30% watches, 30% debt relief, 30% cheap prescriptions, and a smattering of miscellaneous penis alerts, stock tips, or mortgage offers. The debt relief category is killing me:

abolish all of your credi't card deb't so you can get command of your wea1th
Abolish all you are indebted for not even sending another cent
Abolish everything you are indebted for not even paying an other cent
Abolish everything you owe without paying another dime
Eliminate all that you are indebted for with out mailing an other dollar
Eliminate everything you owe not even paying another dime
Eliminate everything you owe not even paying another dime [Copycat!]
Eradicate all you owe with out paying another dollar
Get rid of all you are indebted for without mailing another cent
Get rid of everything you are indebted for not even paying an other cent

You see how unoriginal these subject lines are? Well, except for that first one—apostrophizing credit and debt a masterstroke. Here's what I'd do if I were writing these things. I'd mix up the word order a bit, and for the love of god, have these people never heard of a plugged nickel?

Here's my contribution (and spammers, please, feel free to use this subject line; you don't even have to attribute it to me:

Wipe out every plugged nickel of your obligations—every single one!

Yes, that sucks too—but this is spam we're talking about. But these people, they just need to quit with the without/not even sending/mailing/paying any more tropes. Really, now.

South Dakota's abortion ban

I know I've been doing a terrible job (or at least a not-terrific job) of updating this here blog. I will try to do better (and funnier), honest.

Right now, I want to send you over to Charlie's post about the new abortion ban passed by the South Dakota legislature. Charlie lists some key points that are often overlooked, and provides links to other posts on this important topic.

South Dakota's abortion ban was designed to be appealed to the Supreme Court, where the antiabortion forces hope the ban will be upheld by the current batch of justices. (I'm so sorry that Sandra Day O'Connor's husband was ill—if only this voice of moderation could be immortal and surrounded by immortal loved ones, eh?) There are those who feel confident that the Supremes will be reasonable and knock down the ban, but we don't really know what Roberts and Alito will do yet. If they prove to be good little friends for Thomas and Scalia, we're in a heap of trouble in the years ahead.

If only Bush hadn't picked up that electoral edge in 2004—sigh.

The Bad Finger

Last night, Ben asked me, "Which is the bad finger?" and gave me "the finger" but with his ring finger. I showed him which finger it's supposed to be, but told him it's rude to flip the bird at someone and it hurts people's feelings.

Like any clever child, Ben knows how to work the angles, so he gave himself the finger, and said, "Look, it doesn't hurt my feelings," and asked me, his mother, to give him The Bad Finger. (I refused. See what a good role model I am?)

Mr. Tangerine walked into the room, so I explained what Ben and I had been discussing. Good old Dad concurred with my judgment and told Ben not to wield The Bad Finger—and certainly never at school.

Ben knows that there are certain things that should be done only when one is alone. So he ducked into my bedroom, closed the door, and gave himself The Bad Finger in private! Then he opened the door when he was done, satisfaction achieved.

Add that to the list of things that may be done when one is in private: a wild rumpus for one, giving oneself The Bad Finger"...what else is there?

Essay of the month

Here's the best piece of writing I've read all month: Chris Clarke's post, "The cursorial life." It's about life, writing, and spiders. If spiders freak you out, you might want to skip it, but you'll miss out on some fantastic writing. Go. Read.

Catblogging

I do not care for cats. Yes, they can be fluffy and cute, but I don't trust 'em any further than I can throw 'em. Actually, that's a lie. I could throw a cat clear across the room, but I wouldn't trust it a centimeter. I get creeped out by the feeling of a cat's paw walking on my lap, I don't much care for them brushing past my shin, I don't like the chilly little nose, and I certainly don't enjoy their tongues.

It all goes back to when I was about five years old, and a neighbor's housecat got out. My sister went to pet the pretty kitty, but the pretty kitty was alarmed by this. The pretty kitty bit a chunk out of my sister's thigh, took a few nibbles out of her knee, and raked long claw marks up her shin. I got shunted off to the next-door neighbor's for a few hours (they had a vinyl-covered couch, and vinyl pathways protecting the mottled harvest-gold shag carpet—oh, the trauma!) while my parents took my sister to the emergency room (that's "casualty" for you Brits, isn't it?). My sister had long, narrow strips of first-aid tape striping her shin, small bandages on her knee, and a big dressing on her thigh wound. Cats being filthy and disgusting creatures (Do you dispute this? What do cats lick? Every part of their hairy bodies. Plus they walk in their toilets.), of course, that big bite wound became infected. My sister still has a good-sized scar on her leg, and I still bear the mental scars—an abiding mistrust and fear of cats. You can tell me your cat is sweet and loving, but I still won't trust it and won't want it on my lap.

This post was inspired by Becky's post on her gay cat, where I left a comment about my childhood pet's sexual proclivities. Yes, our English springer spaniel Abby (officially named Lady Aberlyn, after that freaky lady from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) livened up every slumber party my sister and I had. We'd grab somebody's pillow, plant an idea in Abby's dog brain, and next thing you know, somebody's pillow is getting the humping of a lifetime. Some dogs hump people's legs, but our dog had a fetish for pillows. (Does this make you want to hear My Humps?)

A friend of mine once had two cats named Nigel and Mr. French. I believe it was Nigel who was a sexual deviant. His owner would wake up to discover Nigel gripping the blanket in his teeth, pulling it back and forth in his crotch. Sometimes he'd be in another room with a blanket, but getting off on the blanket in private wasn't good enough. He'd drag the blanket into the room where his owner was, strictly to have an audience when he yanked his blankie.

Another friend of mine has a boyfriend named Nigel, who apparently finds it surprising that Americans think "Nigel" is kind of a silly name, and breathtakingly British. (We do.) As far as I know, human Nigel has never heard about cat Nigel, but now that it's on the Internets, his girlfriend can send him the link and spare herself the indignity of recounting the sordid tale aloud.

I know Blogger has been misbehaving lately and making it hard to read or write comments, but if you luck out and it actually works, feel free to share your own stories of perversity in the animal kingdom, ailurophobia, or Nigels. (Something for everyone, eh?)

Whence they came

Rob Helpy-Chalk just posted a list of search terms that brought people to his blog. Herewith, some recent ones for Orange Tangerine:

butt cracks (Naturally!)

prostate massage pictures (Sorry, I got nothin'.)

how to age and rip your jeans (For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why?)

i'ma women [sic] and my nipples are small (You don't say.)

orange twizzlers (Ew!)

indoor waterpark bacteria (Sorry, I don't know much on the subject.)

attractive brassiere implants (Really?)

sugar sandwich (I still haven't tried the butter-and-sugar sandwich, but I do like me some buttered toast with sugar sprinkled on top.)

john dodd beast car (I don't know how you ended up here, but try this search with quotes.)

And my personal favorite of this batch: tricks for voiding postpartum (Sorry, I had a C-section and have no information for you.)

Alternative Smut Writing Workshop

Okay, many of my readers are, like me, not part of the NASCAR demographic. Some of you were constitutionally unable to write a snippet of NASCAR smut. Because I am a compassionate soul, I hereby offer a few alternative writing assignments. Choose one of the following scenarios:

1. Good lovin' with a thinking woman's man (or woman, if you are so inclined); examples include Charlie Rose, Paul Krugman, Hendrik Hertzberg, Bill Clinton, but you are encouraged to pick your own intellectual hottie.

2. Good lovin' in an academic or professional setting.

3. Totally hedonistic realization of all your fantasies.

Could someone Windex the Johari window?

Do you want to tell me what you think of me? Then head over to my Johari window and toss some adjectives at me...

New stuff: Go fling invective at me at the negative Nohari window, too.

NASCAR-smut writing assignment

Becky the Absent-Minded Housewife left this comment on the NASCAR-romance post: ...his racing suit outlined every muscle, every rippling ridge of his well defined manhood. When he threw me on the hood of his Ferrari I knew that I was his and his alone, bending like a cheap fender to his steely will...

Okay, Becky has gotten us off. To a good start! Gotten us off to a good start, I mean. Your mission, should you choose to accept it—and I know you will, because nobody wants to disappoint Her Juiciness—is to compose your own excerpt from a smutty little automotive romance novel. The writing workshop is now open; please take a seat in the comments and show us what you've got.

So not my demographic

I do enjoy my Entertainment Weekly subscription. I always have something to read while brushing or flossing my teeth (DoctorMama, holla!) or sitting down to pee, and I stay up to date on the latest in show business, books, and music. Now, I won't pretend it didn't sting when The Most Fabulous Documentary That Ever Was (i.e., Wordplay) didn't rate an actual review from the EW critics who went to Sundance—but at least they were kind enough to include the crossword movie in their list of five Sundance breakouts.

Last week's issue of EW alerted me to the most important new development in the publishing world: NASCAR-licensed Harlequin romances. The first in the series is called Into the Groove. It'll be followed by two more titles this year and 19 next year. Now, if you're looking for out-and-out motor-sports smut, this ain't for you—NASCAR's keeping the books at a PG-13 level. Each volume will, I presume, involve a male race-car driver and a female love interest.

This is absolutely, positively, indubitably a book series I will never read. Why not? I am female, after all. But NASCAR? Ick. I'm a city girl, and us city folks are a tad less inclined to love motor sports. And Harlequin romances? Ick. Frankly, I just might be too smart for the NASCAR Harlequin combo. I daresay the NASCAR Harlequin vibe is aptly summed up by the Amazon customer reviews. At this writing, there are three reviews, averaging 4 stars apiece: two 5-star raves and one 2-star rave. Yes, that's right. One reader raved about the book ("It held my attention all the way, I can't wait for the next 2. I hope the next 2 are as good. Thank you from a true diehard NASCAR fan. Its worth reading.I give it the NASCAR NEXTEL CUP CHAMPIONSHIP!!!") and bestowed a 2-star rating on the book. The intricacies of both the 5-star rating system and the conventions of punctuation have eluded her. You see? I am in the Proper Punctuation demographic, not the NASCAR Groupie demographic.

I'm holding out for the series of romance novels involving infectious-disease epidemiologists who construct crossword puzzles. Now that could be hot. What? There's a market for that sort of thing. I'm sure of it.

Gee, you think?

NYT headline today: Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities. "Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November... 'We seem to be losing our voice when it comes to the basic things people worry about,' Mr. Dodd said."

Do you hear the resounding chorus throughout the land as people check out the NYT's home page today? All the voices saying "No shit, Sherlock," "Well, duh," "Hello, where have you people been?" and "Oh, come on! You're just noticing this now?"

Lofty aspirations

Ben's room. Last night, at bedtime.

Ben: When I'm a grown-up, I'm going to live here. I'm going to stay home with you, Mommy.
Me: You know, I might well be back at work when you're grown up.
Ben: Why?
Me: Because. It could happen.
Ben: Then I'll stay home and clean the house.
Me: You better believe you're gonna clean the house! When you're grown up, I'm not cleaning up after you.

Ben's room. Tonight, at bedtime. After recounting the above exchange to Mr. Tangerine (which cracked Ben up).

Ben: And I'm gonna play with my cars.
Mr. Tangerine (whispering to me): He'll line up all the cars in a row.
All: Uproarious laughter.

(The living room rug currently features 38 Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars in one row and nine in the next row. Ben insists that they not be disturbed.)

This 'n' that

Where I live, December was cold. Really cold. As in "one of the coldest Decembers in the past 140 years" cold. But I got used to bundling up any time I left the house and wearing my boots to trudge through the unmelting snow, and it wasn't so bad. Then, after Christmas, it warmed up, leading to one of the warmest Januaries (is that the correct plural of January?) in the weather annals. During the course of that month, I went to the mountains in Utah for Sundance, and damn, it was cold. I was out of practice with the bundling-up business, and it was just so c-c-c-cold. Now it's February, and while it's not as cold as the December nasties, it's colder than it was all last month. But I need not complain bitterly, for Santa Claus brought me toasty warm shoes. (Technically, I shopped for the shoes myself and gave them to Mr. Tangerine to wrap up as a Christmas present.) But I bought lovely chocolate brown shoes, and I kept finding myself wearing them with black tops, so now I've ordered a black pair. It's the only way I'll get through February, March, and the cold part of April. Omigod, slipping into these shoes is like swaddling your feet in warm blankets, no matter how long you're out in the cold. Sure, they're low-backed slides, but they're warmer than my boots. If your feet tend to get cold, these shoes will delight them.

Wow. Weather blogging and shoe blogging! For an encore, without further ado, not necessarily medically sound information on parasomnias. What's a parasomnia? It's a sleep disorder that involves some sort of activity while you're sleeping—it could mean sleepwalking, nightmares, sleep terrors, or strange behaviors that pop up during REM sleep. That last one is bizarre; people with REM sleep behavior disorder act out vivid, violent dreams while they're asleep. They'll talk or yell, punch, kick, or grab, sit up, jump out of bed, flail their arms—all of which can be most alarming if you're sleeping with one of these people. Can you imagine? (You know, Mr. Tangerine once bit my shoulder in his sleep. He must have been dreaming about snacking, eh?)

The most bloggable parasomnia hasn't been widely accepted by the medical establishment, and I can't say whether it merits being an officially sanctioned diagnosis. However, it makes for some good readin': Check out sleepsex.org and learn about "sexsomnia" (click a few links if you're bored). This is not to be confused with postcoital sleepiness used to relieve insomnia, nor with being unable to sleep because you've got sex on your mind. Nope, "sexsomnia" is sexual behavior that occurs, like sleepwalking, while a person is sound asleep from a neurological standpoint. It could be a man mauling his partner in the middle of the night and having no memory of it (and if he's not dreaming about foreplay first, hmm, that could be off-putting to the partner). It could be a woman having a really spicy dream and having herself a good ol' time under the covers, alone or with her bed partner. Or it could be a guy who pleasures himself in his sleep. Throw in a scenario in which a couple's sex life has dwindled—how would you feel if your honey never wanted to do it with you, but he or she woke you up nightly while having an unconscious wild rumpus for one?

You know what? I like that phrase: wild rumpus for one. Definitely more fun when you're awake, though...

Who can't you stand?

I found this link over at ding's house: It's "The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005" list. I know you people are busy, so I've cherry-picked the highlights for you:

Michael Brown (#35), formerly in charge of destroying FEMA: A man of geological indolence, Brown makes lichens seem dynamic.

In the write-up for Kenneth Tomlinson (#32), who was hired to deliberalize PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the BEAST folks point out: ...Why is [it] that those who rail against "racial quotas" have no problem with affirmative action when it’s applied to newsroom ideology?

Then there's a Joe Lieberman (#28) quote that's ripe for a smackdown: "Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion." Apparently, it also doesn’t mean freedom from asinine revisionism. (Lieberman irks me.)

Regarding Paris Hilton (#25): Squints inexplicably for photo ops, suggesting even minimal focus is beyond her. Her continued success as a celebrity famous for nothing, despite the eerie resemblance she bears to the inbred banjoist from Deliverance and a lack of talent so profound that others become duller as they approach her, indicates that something is fundamentally wrong with humanity.

The BEAST team doesn't much care for Karl Rove (#15): A greasy pig whose only distinction in life is his total lack of decency. Rove is decidedly not a genius; he is simply missing the part of his soul that prevents the rest of us from kicking elderly women in the face. His admirers have elevated fanatical, amoral ambition to the status of a virtue, along with lying, cheating, and negligent homicide, all in the name of "values." Quite possibly the worst person in the worst White House in American history.

BEAST's suggested punishment for the NYT's White House bootlicker, Elisabeth Bumiller (#14): The Times' reign as the "paper of record" is finally brought to an end when the paper’s headquarters are demolished by readers upon publication of Bumiller’s final dispatch, "Bush’s Taint: Sweet Like Honey." (Gotta love any mention of the taint.)

I always enjoy criticism of Bill O'Reilly (#10): Even Limbaugh must bow before O’Reilly’s unparalleled bullying skills and ability to deliver undiluted bullshit with an air of brusque authority. O’Reilly is so comfortable with his astounding hypocrisy that he didn’t skip a beat when he was publicly revealed to be a comically perverse sexual harasser, continuing to sanctimoniously moralize about the corrosive effects of rap music and intellectualism on American society. Main tactic against his critics, whose jobs rank among the easiest in the world, is to accuse them of his own methods: arbitrary smears, selective quotation, partisan motivation, and intellectual cowardice. Infuriatingly claims to be a political "independent" who just happens to parrot virtually every Republican talking point and equate mainstream liberals with Nazis and Stalinists. Claimed his call for abandoning San Francisco to al Qaeda bombing was "satirical," which is itself the funniest thing he’s ever said. An honest to goodness list-making Joe McCarthy wannabe, with the ACLU standing in for the Communist Party.

There's so much to say about Tom DeLay (#5), but this encapsulates it all: A politician so horrible, his prior career as an exterminator constitutes fratricide.

Bush and Cheney are #3 and #2, respectively, but more entertaining are the charges against the #1 most loathsome American, Pat Robertson: If Pat Robertson’s local Starbucks caught fire, he would claim that God was punishing them for giving him a caramel latte when he ordered vanilla. Robertson has always been a demonic charlatan with the credibility of Miss Cleo and a lust for Armageddon in his vile, rat-toad heart, but this was really his year to shine. In 2005, Robertson called on God to vacate seats in the Supreme Court (the almighty obliged, killing Rehnquist), advocated assassinating Hugo Chavez, said ‘judicial activists’ were a more serious threat to America than terrorists, called criticism of the war treason, said John Roberts should be thankful for Hurricane Katrina, which he implied was “connected” to Roe v. Wade, attributed Ariel Sharon’s stroke to divine retribution for the Gaza pullout, said “the Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today,” and implied that God would wipe the residents of Dover, PA off the map for rejecting Creationism. Not to mention raising huge sums of cash from his zombie army, much of which is diverted from his charity operations to his business interests, including African diamond mines. Has long advocated that America simply ignore the Supreme Court. Robertson’s God is an insecure, misogynistic, homicidal fanatic—just like Pat.

"Mom, I love airplane food."

...or so Ben announced tonight. Now that actual airplane food is hard to come by when you fly coach, though, what Ben considers "airplane food" is the McDonalds food purchased in the terminal minutes before our boarding call.

I've been erratic, scattered, and focused elsewhere lately, which doesn't make for a compelling blog. I haven't even been keeping up with my usual schedule of obsessive blog reading. Will these doldrums pass? Has anyone suffered from this and emerged from it as the same time-wasting Internet-obsessed person they were pre-doldrums?

Which reminds me—I did a crossword puzzle the other day that taught me a new term: mouse potato, or the computer-junkie equivalent of a couch potato. (A friend suggested combining both potato forms by sitting on the couch with a laptop and the TV turned on. Brilliant! Must purchase iBook immediately.)

Plus I still haven't repaid the sleep debt I accumulated during the Sundance Film Festival. (And yes, the current medical opinion seems to be that one can and should try to catch up by somehow reclaiming one's missed sleep hours. I edit some sleep medicine review articles each year. Ask me about parasomnias sometime. People can do some truly weird shit when they're physiologically sound asleep.) I sit here before the bright monitor, just past 11:00 at night, yawning away, trying to catch up on my residual Internet debt ("I can stop any time I want") and thereby sacrificing any chance of catching up on sleep.

Will someone please tuck me in?

Two bits

Rob Helpy-Chalk, you recently said you found Morgan Spurlock's facial hair a tad off-putting. Rob, this is for you.

Have you got one?

When disrobing before his shower this morning, Ben was overcome by intellectual curiosity, as often happens to a five-year-old.

Ben: Do firefighters have butt cracks?
Me: Yes.
Ben: Do ambulance guys have butt cracks?
Me: Yes, they do.
Ben: Do sick people have butt cracks?
Me: [Thinking As long as they're not sick with a raging case of noncrackitis.] Yes.
Ben: What about dead people?
Me: That...depends. [Thinking of cremation and advanced decomposition, either of which would pose a stern challenge to even the sturdiest butt crack.]
Ben: What if they're, like, skeletons?
Me: Then no.

(If you're reading this post months from now and wondering why there are no pictures of firemen with their pants off, I don't know what to tell you, other than good luck in your search!)

I'm back, but in name only

It was wonderful to get away for a grown-up's vacation at Sundance, away from the daily burdens of childcare and housework. Any stay-at-home parent needs a chance to get out of town and recharge every now and then, and I'm grateful to Mr. Tangerine for taking a couple days off work so I could do this (and thanks to my mom, who took Tuesday off work).

Alas, when I left for Utah, there were a few loads of clean laundry in need of folding and drawerifying. I came back from my trip recharged but exhausted (sleeping just four hours a night will do that to a girl), and facing an ever-expanding heap of dirty laundry. I washed a couple loads but still haven't started that folding, so I've got an unprecedented amount of clean and dirty laundry sitting in silent rebuke to my domestic attentiveness. Ah, fuck it. It'll get done sometime, right? In the meantime, I'm having a hard time pulling myself away from the computer (as if that's a new thing!). Why, there's Googling to be done! Is there anything new in the media about Wordplay? I must know! Would those articles be lost to history if I skipped a day of Googling? Of course not. But do I feel more compelled to fold laundry? Hell, no.

Wow, if you're still reading, you must be just as addicted to reading blogs as I am. This is strikingly dull blog fodder here.

I'm grateful to Lisa and her family for welcoming me into their home for five days. Lisa's an enviably relaxed mother to her twin sons—I don't think I heard her raise her voice once at the twin bundles of pure energy that are Max and Oliver. Lisa's hospitality extended to her PC, which gave me a chance to keep up with my e-mail while I was out of town. And luckily for all, Lisa's offer of lodging was not a ruse to sell me to the fundamentalist Mormons as a plural wife, and I did not turn out to be an axe murderer or identity thief.

One of the best aspects of my Sundance getaway was the socializing. I generally spend an awful lot of time at home, alone or with my family. At Sundance, I was with other people from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. I hadn't spent more than a few minutes in direct (not online) conversation with anyone there before I got to Utah, and some people were entirely new to me—and yet the intercourse was free and easy. (Who doesn't love using the word intercourse in lieu of conversation?) Lisa and the members of crossword gang are all great people—intelligent, witty, and often bloggerific.

Sorry this post was so nothing-laden. I felt duty-bound to write something, but my mind is woefully depleted of snappy repartee. And repartee implies more than one person doing the talking. Help me out here, folks. Give me something to reparteeize about with you. Please?

Shout-out from Language Log

A couple days ago, one of the crossword gang came across this Language Log post that refers readers to my other blog, Diary of a Crossword Fiend, for the Sundance/Wordplay scoop. After all the times I've cited Language Log posts over here, that made my day. (Or it would have, if I hadn't also been meeting famous people the same day.)

Sundance logorrhea

I'm back home parked before my faithful G5, four days of Sundance experiences swirling inside my mind. Here's what I've been up to since my last post:

I reached Lisa's house Friday afternoon, and we clicked like old friends. That's one of the best things about blogging—if two bloggers click online and via email, if they enjoy each other's perspectives and attitudes, that sympatico sense seems to translate effortlessly into real-life friendship. Lisa's little boys were delightful—it was been like being around my own five-year-old, only twice as noisy since Oliver and Max are twins. They remind me a lot of Ben. Lisa's husband and brother-in-law—both tall, handsome drinks of water—wrangled the kids so Lisa could join me for Sundance festivities. (Thanks, guys!)

My film festival experience kicked off with a party hosted by Wordplay director Patrick Creadon and producer Christine O'Malley's families (Patrick and Christine are married and have two little girls in addition to a bouncing baby documentary). This gathering was pretty mellow, and offered a chance for the crossword people and the filmmakers' relatives to mingle and get to know each other—we'd be seeing a lot of one another over the next few days. Patrick took the opportunity to thank a lot of people—everyone from the kin who had funded the movie to my crossword-constructing friend Vic Fleming, who helped arrange for Bill Clinton's participation in the movie; once the Clinton interview had been scheduled, Jon Stewart was suddenly so much more interested in appearing in Wordplay himself.

(Here's a promotional button for the movie. Buttons were also available with a pencil or a marker—but the cool kids solve crosswords with a glue stick.)



Many of the "stars" of Wordplay—NYT puzzle editor Will Shortz and several top crossword competitors—shared a spacious condo in Deer Valley (affectionately termed the Puzzle Palace). Lisa and I hung out there a few evenings, and had a wonderful time. Board games, blogging, wordplay, camaraderie, great food, and heavy drinking (well, if you count the milk we had when Stella baked blondies). We played a song-lyrics board game called Encore, and there was so much laughter you'd think we were all trashed out of our respective gourds. But nope, we were just high on witty banter. The kitchen table was often laden with laptops, and you know what? No one looked at you funny if you wanted to blog or do crosswords online. My tribe, my peeps.

Saturday morning, we went to the Wordplay world premiere. The movie had sold out well in advance of the festival, and a few hundred people lined up in the hope of getting into the screening from the waiting-list line. The process was inexplicable and chaotic, but eventually our entire contingent (except Lisa, alas, and the 200 people in line behind her) did get in to see the premiere (some of us at the last minute). The movie was fantastic, the crowd loved it, you'll laugh and you'll cry, omigod Jon Stewart was so funny (he may have to go on the freebie list), damn, Bill Clinton looks good these days (all right, he's back on the freebie list), yadda yadda yadda. Your faithful correspondent pops up on screen briefly a few times (and my name's listed in the credits in the "Also Featuring" category), and I'm the only one in the movie who curtsies. (Yes, I know that's a little odd. No, I don't know what I was thinking. And no, I don't regret looking a tad silly since it kept me in the movie! Someday, I'll meet Bill Clinton or Jon Stewart, and he'll think, "She looks familiar...where do I know her from?" And I'll curtsy, and it'll click: "Oh, right! We're in the same movie! Do you have time to join me for coffee?") I'm so glad I made the trip to Sundance to see the movie here—we crossword insiders did a lot of nudging and whispering ("Hey, there I am!" "Look, there you are again!" "Ooh, foreshadowing!"). I'm sure I'll see the movie many more times with other people, but the nudging and whispering won't be quite the same when the friends I'm seeing the movie with aren't, you know, in the movie.

That afternoon, Will did a well-attended book signing at Dolly's Bookstore on Main Street. None of our group needed Will's autograph, and generally we've done all the NYT crosswords so we don't need to buy the books, so instead we just held up the line by taking pictures. Here's a picture of me with Will (the mustachioed man in the center) and another Also Featured Wordplay cast member, Byron Walden.



After the book signing, Tyler Hinman, Stella Daily, and I did a little window shopping down Main Street. This bit of furry apparel caught our collective eye. The tag read, "For the man who has everything." Valentine's Day is coming up soon, ladies and gay men. You'll want to order your beau's fur thong this week.



Sunday, there was a post-premiere brunch at a restaurant that was a looong walk uphill. Good food, NPR puzzles with Will, good chats. CNN came to the party to interview the movie's crossword-solving stars. The CNN "entertainment anchor" Brooke Anderson was a hot blonde who absolutely stood out as "not one of us." (Way hotter in person than in that link.) I have no idea if CNN ever aired any of the footage, though...

Monday, Lisa and I met up with the gang at another Wordplay screening at the beautiful but cold Sundance Resort. I loved the movie even more the second time around. I've gotta say, I'm impressed with the structure of the film, the clever ways the filmmakers, the editor Doug Blush, and the graphics pro Brian Oakes pieced the threads together into a coherent whole that sort of followed the structure of a crossword puzzle. Great music in it, too.

You know who else liked the movie on Monday? Glenn Close. She approached the Wordplay/puzzlers group for conversation and photos (the movie star sought out our group, not vice versa!). She's absolutely stunning, and she's shorter than me. Who knew? Here's a picture. From left to right: Brian, Marie, Wordplay producer and director Christine O'Malley and Patrick Creadon (he looked blissfully happy for days on end), Glenn Close, crossword constructor Merl Reagle, and crossword-tournament stars Ellen Ripstein, Tyler Hinman, and Al Sanders.



Monday night, I accompanied fellow members of the crossword mafia (Ellen, Stella, Dean, Al, Tyler, Trip, and Brian) to a club called Zoom for a party held by the publicists trying to sell Wordplay and a few other films. People were turned away at the door if they weren't on the guest list—and the crossword geeks, of course, made the cut. There was no velvet rope, but it was pretty damn cool to be ushered into a private party. One woman actually grabbed Dean's coat in a futile attempt to ride his coattails into the party. (She was rebuffed.) The folks at the door did let a few outsiders in—we met Saturday Night Live comedian Rachel Dratch (actually, I merely passed her on the stairs) and documentarian Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me). He's kinda hot in person, and we had a nice little chat and posed for a picture. I also found out that the editor of Wordplay, Doug, and I have some mutual friends. Small world. And either after I left Zoom or when I was upstairs, other famous people showed up at the party—their pictures are here.

My Sundance experience is now behind me. I've been ruined for all subsequent film festivals now—how could anything compare? Just...seeing movies? That I'm not in? Without parties with Hollywood insiders? I don't know about that. Anyway, you'll get a chance to see Wordplay yourselves later this year. Several distributors have been clamoring to buy the rights to the movie, so it's practically assured of having a theatrical release. And the Sundance audiences have loved the movie, so we're hoping Wordplay will find an enthusiastic audience, sell a zillion tickets, get great reviews, and win fabulous awards. Move over, March of the Penguins. Let the black-and-white seabirds make way for the black-and-white squares of Wordplay.

Automated out-of-office reply

I don't know if I'll get a chance to post again before I leave for Sundance (Sundance, baby!) at the crack of dawn on Friday, so here I am now. If I have time and can figure out how to post from someone else's machine, I might blog from Utah—otherwise, see you next week!

The lovely Lisa the Bored Housewife was kind enough to offer me a place to stay, and she's so domestically talented, she's even going to prepare home-cooked meals for me. I just might refuse to leave when the film festival is over. If she's got cable TV in the basement, so I'll be all set. At some point, though Utah will probably send me screaming back to Chicago. I hear they sheathe fashion magazines in discreet covers at the newsstands out there—as if Glamour is as morally shocking as Hustler. It's not as if I crave unimpeded access to fashion magazines, but you know what I'm saying.

I will be taking my threaded eyebrows and my new haircut (which will be wrought upon my head tomorrow) to a couple parties for the Wordplay contingent at Sundance, and I'll also be giving my longjohns a workout standing in line outdoors Saturday morning trying to get a ticket for the movie's world premiere. (What could be more glamorous than longjohns? Nothing, that's what. I'm going totally Hollywood this weekend.) I bought tickets for a fairly random assortment of movies, but I don't know how many of them I'll end up seeing. I mean, for starters, two fifths of the members of my freebie list—Robert Downey Jr. and Bruce Willis—are also appearing in movies at Sundance. See? We've got so much in common now. We're all in Sundance movies this month. I think it's fate...

A child's grasp of King Day

Ben’s off school today in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Last week, he learned about Dr. King’s legacy. He said they watched two filmstrips: Can this be possible? Are schoolchildren in 2006 still watching filmstrips? (I was always a smidgen envious of the go-getters who got to operate the filmstrip machine back when I was in grade school...)

Ben was telling me about King, but there are so many words in his full name, it’s hard for a five-year-old to get it right. I heard things like “Martin Luther Doctor King Junior” and “Martin Luther King Junior Martin,” and King Kong was mentioned more than once.

Ben was grooving on his garbled singsong rendition of “We Shall Overcome.”You know, I swear I never learned the song in school. “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” yes. “We Shall Overcome,” no. A tremendous shortcoming in my education, surely.

Anyway, I asked Ben, “What did Martin Luther King stand for? What did he say?”He replied, “That kids should be quiet so they can hear their teachers.” Ha! Yes, that’s right. Let us judge children not by the color of their skin, but by whether or not they are quiet so they can hear their teachers.

He learned about segregated bathrooms and bus seating. He learned that the civil rights movement tried to make things more fair for black people, but he didn’t really know what “black people” meant. (These people are brown, darn it! Ben, like most innocent kids, characterizes people by their shades of brown, tan, pink, and white rather than by the social construct of race.) So I had to explain that for the first time. I was hoping my mixed-race baby could get a little older before having to introduce the concepts of race and racism, but the words and lessons of Martin Luther King, Jr., are certainly an excellent starting point for that discussion.

Also? The kindergartners colored in little stapled-together coloring books about MLK. On the cover, Ben opted for the lime-green marker for Dr. King’s face:

Jeans advice

All right. Desperate to acquire some new jeans, I bought a pair at the Gap the other day. They've got the broken-in "left weave" denim and the "curvy flare" cut, and they look decent on me. However I am an adult. And these jeans? They have holes in them—one on the right knee, one on the left thigh. And preemptively holey jeans, quite frankly, are silly.

Question 1: Can I wear these jeans in public at my advanced age (late 30s), or must I return them for a refund? They're the first jeans that fit well enough for me to buy them after about three months of occasional shopping.

Question 2: If I do keep these jeans, can I wear them at Sundance? Is it in poor taste to let your long underwear show through the prefab holes in your jeans?

Headline of the day

"Turkey Moves to Save Poultry Industry."

Is this the pitch for a sequel to Chicken Run?

My latest conversion

In preparation for my first spendy haircut and my first venture into hair color/highlights, I figured I'd better get my brows tidied up. If I were to walk into that fancy-schmancy salon next week sporting a pair of meek caterpillars* above my eyes, I can't say I'd blame them if they shoved me out amid peals of mocking laughter and barred the door. So I made an appointment for brow waxing.

When I arrived, the "technician" (is there such a thing as tech support for waxing?) asked if I wanted my eyebrows waxed or threaded. Ooh! Threading! I'd been wanting to try threading, because waxing has been known to draw blood from my oh-so-sensitive skin. The technician has her own brows threaded and she's been performing the technique for six years, so I figured I'd be in good hands. Threading, like any technique that involves ripping hairs out of one's skin, hurts a bit. But while waxing always left the area around my brows reddened and irritated for the rest of the day, I left the appointment feeling perfectly fine.

Here are the results:



Would you please remind me to do this again in mid-February when the caterpillars begin nesting again? Thanks!

*No, I can't show you a "before" photo. It would be too alarming.

Fear and Loathing in the Brassiere

It seems like a lot of women have mixed feelings about their breasts. They're too small. They're too big. They're too droopy. They're shaped wrong. One's bigger than the other. They garner unwanted attention. They're painful. They're the subject of medical concern, or might turn cancerous. They're tubular. Men don't like them enough, or they like them too much. They changed after pregnancy. They changed after weight gain/loss. They have stretch marks or noticeable veins. They don't function as expected for breastfeeding. Bras don't fit, clothes don't hang right. Nipples are too big, small, flat, protuberant, dark, light, hairy, or inverted. Nipples are too sensitive or not sensitive enough, or they're too obvious when it's chilly.

Me, I’ve got about seven mammary complaints myself. Overall, I’m not dissatisfied with them, but I’m not thrilled either. The best thing I can say about them is that they’re remarkably soft. (No implants here!) And maybe someday I’ll seek a boost from a plastic surgeon (a breast lift, not augmentation).

Women, how content are you with your breasts? Do any of us absolutely love what we’ve got, or do we all have reservations? I never see this topic discussed, but I bet there’s a great deal that goes unsaid.

Washington, Lincoln, and Ogunleye?

Eric Zorn's latest column muses on the "euphonic symphony" of players' names in today's NFL. The Chicago Bears roster includes guys named Adawale Ogunleye, Oladele Brendon Ayanbadejo, and Israel Idonije—and yes, one of them is foreign-born: Idonije was born in Canada. The rest of the league includes many other players with non-European, not-traditionally-American names.

Celebrating their distinctive appellations celebrates that Americans from other cultures no longer have to "westernize" their names to fit in, Zorn writes. It wasn't long ago that the conventional wisdom held that Illinois voters would be reluctant to elect a governor with a hard-to-spell name like Blagojevich, or a senator with a "foreign" name like Barack Obama. As it turns out, not only did Illinoisans vote for Obama in droves, but the rest of the country wants a chance to vote for him, too. Zorn points out, Unfamiliar is not the same as strange. Foreign does not mean unwelcome. The beauty is both in the lyrical cadences of Ayanbadejo, Idonije and Ogunleye and in the recognition they provoke: National and cultural origins notwithstanding, these are also, now, truly American names.

I look at the names of my son's kindergarten classmates and see the future of the city. Zishan and Maham, Tinuola and Pedro, Michelle and Lynda. All of them are American kids, no more or less so than the Caitlyns, Tylers, and (alas) Brittneys.

"If you love somebody, set them free"

Did it vex you mightily that the Sting lyric followed the singular "somebody" with the the plural "them"? Were you taught that "if you love somebody, set him or her free" or "if you love some people, set them free" would be the preferred usage?

Well, rest your battle-wearied head, because Geoffrey Pullum at Language Log says it's OK. No less an authority than The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language takes the stance that they can follow a singular antecedent. Pullum writes, "It's a position that couldn't really be doubted by anyone who had devoted even a few minutes to looking at the facts of usage, be it literary (over the past 600 years) or everyday conversational. Excellent advice."

Pullum scorns the "American backwardness" of "Strunk and White, and their thousands of latter-day co-religionists such as Stanley Fish and the style guides of the Modern Language Association and the American Psychological Association. Why do these sources continue to damn singular antecedents for they in defiance of all the evidence of its constant use by respectable authors during at least the past six centuries? I have no idea."

I can accept the singular they, Sting or no Sting. But what I still vehemently deplore is the misguided use of the subjective I where an objective me belongs, as in the Bodeans song, "Good Things": "No, no, no, don't pass me over. No, no, no, don't pass me by. See I can see good things for you and I." I like the song, but I have no choice but to edit while singing along, making "for you and me" rhyme with "see I can see." (The Bodeans should have thought of that themselves.) And don't get me started on "just between you and I," okay?

Awards season

You know how some bloggers get all riled up about the Bloggies or the BoBs or the Blahblogs or whatever all those awards are? Well, I am the proud recipient of a few awards myself: The fabulous woman who goes by the moniker of Feral Mom has just bestowed the 2005 Feral Blog Awards. The brilliant and buxom writer Lisa and I tied for two awards: Best Writing and Best Rack. And the estimable DoctorMama tied me for the Smartypants Award. I am greatly honored, and I'd like to thank blahblahblah.

Is it unseemly to tout the awards one has received? Absolutely. But everyone does it, and I just want to fit in.

(Confidential to Sergei: You won't want to miss this award-winning post about testicular ultrasound.)

Sundance, baby!

In the words of The Clash: Should I stay or should I go? The Sundance Film Festival's computer e-mailed me today to tell me when I can attempt to buy movie tickets. My half-hour slot isn't on the first day of online sales (it's either the second, third, or fourth day), and I hear the locals have snagged a lot of the tickets for the weekend of January 20–22. The premiere of the crossword documentary Wordplay is on Saturday the 21st. And there are parties for the Wordplay contingent on Friday and Saturday, as well as repeat showings Sunday night and Monday afternoon.

Sounds like a blast, right? But what if I fly to Utah, only to find out that while I made a brief appearance in the rough cut of the movie, I've been abandoned during the final editing process? Then...I see an interesting movie about people I know, not including me. Which isn't a terrible thing. And I've gotten a lovely offer of housing from Lisa, whom I'd love to meet. And who doesn't like to escape Chicago in January...to go to the snowy mountains of Utah? Same cold wind, but more scenic.

Advice? Does anyone think it's silly to go?

U-Kill the punctuation

Swim where?

Here's the bottom of the rules and regulations sign posted by the swimming pool in a Minnesota motel.

















Choose your favorite aspect:

A. The inconsistent spelling and capitalization of swimwear (Swim Wear? swim ware?).
B. The awkwardness of the phrasing in "no children allowed under 12" and in the additional guidelines.
C. The fact that the motel's trying to evade any liability for people ruining their swimwhair (swimwere?) by donning non-chlorine-resistant garb. Who does that? Are people going for a dip in their fine woolens?

You want to know what rule was omitted but turned out to be sorely needed? Thou shalt not deposit a log in the pool. While our group was away for dinner, someone defiled the pool, so my kid and his cousins missed a chance to swim while the pool was sanitized.

The beauty within the city

Some people look at a big city and bemoan what is absent: wide open spaces, lush greenery, uninterrupted expanses of trees, spacious sky views.

I see the city for what it is—the bustling people, the huddled edifices, the constant hum of traffic punctuated by jets descending toward O’Hare, the dirty snow—but I take notice of the beauty and peacefulness it also contains.

Last week I spotted a new squirrel’s nest, a clutch of brown leaves nestled in the crook of a small elm tree in my back yard. Behind it is the back of a four-story building, the common brick dingy with age. Below it, there’s a chain-link fence and blacktop; just above it, utility wires. But from its nest, the squirrel can also see a mulberry tree, a maple, and many more small elms. In November, one of the elms still had green leaves; one bore yellow leaves; the others were bare. Above them all, framed by the neighboring buildings, we can see the blue sky, the clouds, the dark night sky—once, a lunar eclipse.

The bird species seen most commonly in my neighborhood would impress no birder: mostly sparrows and starlings, a few raucous crows, the occasional cardinal. But last month, I saw a robin (they don’t all hide out until spring). A broken water pipe seeps water, forming a streaming puddle oasis on a snowy hill. The robin was loitering beside the water, borrowing its relative warmth.

In warmer weather, even the most routine walk with a child becomes an impromptu nature trek. Here’s an anthill in the sidewalk crack, teeming with life. Over there, bees and butterflies paying their social calls to the flowers awaiting their pollinators. Squat down to pull a few weeds in the front yard’s groundcover and discover daddy longlegs, small spiders, earthworms, slugs. Pass under a fruiting mulberry tree, pull down a branch, and share some richly sweet, sun-warmed berries with your child.

Nearby, Lake Michigan offers rhythmic waves, swooping gulls and swifts, dragonflies, and deep green, swooshing algae. We seldom spy fish swimming by unless we linger at the harbor’s edge; sometimes the smell of dead fish wafts by, and that too is nature. The sound of the lapping waves, the coolness of the breezes, the endless blue horizon.

The nearness of the lake gives regular lessons in microclimate. When a warm day mingles with the cool water, it’s often a good 15 degrees cooler within a few blocks of the lake; every few years, the extremely localized weather conditions consist of dense, cool fog along the lakeshore when it’s warm and sunny less than a mile west. During the winter, the nights are warmer close to the lake.

Today, it’s uncharacteristically warm (near 40 degrees) and rainy for January. Low clouds or high fog obscured my view of a nearby highrise. Forty miles away, without a 50-story building as a backdrop, would I be able to see the dramatically low clouds and understand how close to the ground they wafted?

I love nature. But I feel so at home in my urban environment that I can’t imagine living where the mountains were designed by orogeny rather than architects and engineers. Nature will always insist on cracking the civilized façade, however, and even the most densely populated neighborhood must make room for the birds, the bugs, the sky, the breeze.