swimming with the masters

I swam in the Masters Meet this weekend: 25 breast and free, and 50 back and free in relays. Swimming fast is hard! The best I wanted to do was finish my races without sinking to the pool floor first, and I accomplished that. "Masters" is just code for "middle-age, doughy white people," which actually encompasses swimmers from about 20 to 85. The 85-year-old was a woman who did the 100 IM. God bless her; it took her about 10 minutes but she did it.

The women mostly wore figure-flaw-hiding black, which only works--and then only marginally--on the areas the suit actually covers, which, of course, doesn't include back fat rolls. With few exceptions, batwings and cottage cheese thighs were the norm. (Incidentally, nobody, but nobody, looks good in a swim cap and goggles, both of which stretch and contort your face into Phyllis Diller-like proportions).

Meanwhile, the men wore...well, it didn't really matter what the men wore. When they're in Speedos, there's no hiding anything, and as far as I could tell--and I researched this intently--most had nothing to brag about.

It was a fun day; we all cheered each other on and gave each other high fives, even if we lost our individual events miserably. Afterward, we enjoyed a BBQ and beer and fruity girly pineapple and coconut concoctions, and by the end of the day, we were vowing to embarrass ourselves, er, do it again next year.

i'm all ears

I went to the dermatologist last week for my annual check-up. A couple of years ago it hit me that, hey, what the hell are all these freckles and spots and moles and what the hell is THIS thing? and that I ought to start seeing a dermatologist.

The dermatologist makes me nervous because it's really the only doctor that needs to see mostly all of your skin, which requires being mostly naked under harsh, unflattering fluorescent lighting. The paper cover-up thing they give you never seems to be big enough and I'm never quite sure how to wear it. Over my shoulders, like a cape? Over the front, but held together by a hand in the back? Around the back and open in the front, like a bath towel? It's all so confusing, and becomes moreso when it inevitably rips when you're trying to pull it just a little bit to cover that one exposed last inch of thigh skin.

This was a new Chinese doctor, so I had to listen carefully because of his accent. He looked around, checked out between my toes, commented on a birthmark on my back, and informed me I have mild rosacea on my face.

"The Irish tend to have rosacea. People think it's because they drink, but it's because they're Irish. Are you Irish?"

"Somewhat."

"Ah. Well, that's it, then." Eliminating the possibility that it's really from excessive drinking. Which it isn't. Really.

He starts examining my scalp. Then, a revelation:

"You have really big ears."

Now, nobody's ever told me this, and it has never before occurred to me that I have big ears.

"Yeah? Really? Gee, nobody's ever told me that before."

"Oh, yes." Then, sensing my concern that having big ears may be detrimental to my health--or at the very least, to my sense of self-esteem because now I think I look like fucking Dumbo--he adds, "People with big ears live longer." He smiles. He's making a joke. About my big ears! Ha! Ha!

"Ha! Well, you're pulling my leg now, doctor." At that time, he really was pulling my leg, looking for moles.

Now, some people might have been offended if their doctor made this observation. But because he was obviously amused by his discovery, I played along. I mean, so what? I have big ears. I can't change them. My hair covers them. But unfortunately, now that this has been brought to my attention, I'll forever notice the size of other people's ears, and compare them to my own. In fact, I looked at his. They seemed normal enough.

When I got home, I rushed to the mirror to look at my ears. He was right! They're huge! When the hell did THAT happen? Oh, NO! It's happening! My head is shrinking, and now my ears are getting bigger! Good grief, in 40 years, I'll look like this:

where's the luck in laundry?

Today was supposed to be the luckiest day of the millennium.

But it was the unluckiest day in my laundry.

So I’m at the sink, picking off the shit that always seems to remain at the bottom of my glasses after they’ve run through the dishwasher, when I hear this horrible BANGBANGBANG in the basement. Not the jaunty BOOMBOOMBOOM the washer makes when it’s unbalanced; this was more sinister.

BANGBANGBANG. Really loud, like there’s an evil troll with a hammer, trying to get out.

I hustle downstairs, open the lid, and see that the machine has stopped spinning during the rinse cycle. That BANGBANGBANG is apparently the sound of the transmission whining that there are too many towels in there.

I fiddle with the knob, try different things, but it won’t spin. It’s done spinning. It’s spent.

Then I heave the soaking, sopping wet towels into the laundry basket to hang outside to dry. The damn thing’s heavy, so the handles break on my laundry basket. But I manage to get it outside, water dripping up and down steps and through the house.

I hang up a towel. The line creaks. I hang up another one at the other end. More creaking. I hang up a third. The line breaks and the towels fall to the ground.

But that’s ok. I have another, stronger one. I hang up all 6 towels. The line breaks. The towels fall to the ground.

Now the towels are dirty and I have to wash them again. I think if I were a neighbor and I watched all this, it’d be funny.

socks

Because you demanded it, here are pictures of L's feet from the 4th. The top picture is from 2007; the bottom from 2006. She took a fashion risk by wearing different sandals. L often takes very colorful fashion risks, and you know how that tendency becomes exaggerated as women grow older, so we're really looking forward to what she'll be wearing in 20 years.

She has promised to stay away from pink cocktails, however.

with degenerates like these, who needs friends?

This 4th of July in Wenonah was pretty much like all the rest of them have been, except it wasn't the hottest day of the year like it usually is. A little morning rain kept the heat away, and the lingering cloud cover and low humidity helped me stay fresh and dry throughout the festivities.

Usually by the time the firehouse opens, people are sweating and glistening like pigs.

What struck me this year is that people looked old. Classmates. Friends. Of course we all look older, but I've been able to kinda gloss over that and see people as they looked 20, 30 years ago.

I couldn't do that this year. I noticed balding heads, wrinkled faces, yellowed teeth, tummy bulges, broken capillaries...and while some of us have aged better than others...we're our parents now. Our parents look the same as they used to, but now we look like them. We're the people the kids look at now and call "old."

And yet...we can stand there and trade stories about youthful adventures and drink beer (though not as much as we used to) and still not feel any older than when we drank Bud and Annie Green Springs and smoked pot and piled into Tom Hoover's beat-up van, speeding down Breakneck road, Zeppelin on the 8-track, not knowing or caring what curveballs we would be faced with the next day.

Yup. It was 4th of July in Wenonah. Same as it ever was.

the end of softball season

Softball season is finally over, for both my girls and the ladies.

My girls team basically sucked, and I mean that with the utmost affection. Eleven and twelve-year-old girls are just simply whacked. Some are tomboys, some are girly girls, some would love to be anywhere but on the softball field, some are all enthusiasm and effort but still suck, and some are the divas who think they play well but don't. They actually improved as the season went on, however.

I managed them this year because none of their parents would. One player's dad helped me out sometimes, but really: these girls wouldn't have played if I hadn't coached them. And I said at the beginning, if one gal got through the season wanting to play next year, then I did my job.

So I keep it together during the last game. They play ok, but we lose. No biggie.

I give them each a silver softball angel charm and some Dubble Bubble. They gather in the dugout for my final words.

"Ok," I say. "Let me just say that it has been..."

Choke. Splutter.

"...an honor and a privilege..."

Sniff. Snort.

"...to have coached you this year."

Turn around, walk to the pitcher's mound, collect my thoughts, hold my head back so whatever tears are there will suck back into my eyeballs. Return to dugout.

"Ok, as I was saying. You gals have been the best..."

Splutter.

Anyway, I choke out whatever stupid final last parting thoughts I wanted to say, which I'm pretty sure the girls had already tuned out by that time.

But wait. Here's the team diva, getting up to give me a hug, looking teary-eyed. Here's one of the tomboys, a big galoot of a gal; she comes up, sniffling, gives me a hug, and says "I'm never letting you go."

Here's Taylor--who had never played before, who beamed each time she had the weakest of hits--who clinches it:

"I want to play again next year. Are you going to coach?" Follows with hug.

"Maybe," I say. "If you'll play on my team."


NJ State Champs, 1978

sex education

I depend on the show Rescue Me to keep me informed of current sexual practices and mores, since I'm apparently woefully behind the curve. It's completely sexist to the point of misogyny, but I love it anyway. Denis Leary wrote himself about 1000 sex scenes in the first season, but has thankfully eased up some. C'mon, he's nearly 50. Do we really want to see him having all that sex?

Last night's episode referred to one's "spank bank." I understood what it meant, but I'd never heard the term before. Am I really that out of it? Or perhaps I just don't spank it enough to warrant having an entire bank to store the necessary visual cues. Maybe I just need a "spank jar."

A couple of seasons ago, the gang was talking about the Venus butterfly technique. This was in fact referenced from L.A. Law years before (yes, I looked it up), but I'd never heard of it before. This technique is pretty involved, and I'll assume the gentle reader knows what it entails. There's so much going on at the major orifices and hot spots that it's almost like working on a car engine, or performing major surgery.

And while I appreciate the detailed attention that a woman's genitalia--and other regions--receives during the technique, how the HELL can you relax with all that going on? It's almost too focused and detached, intended only to elicit orgasm without all the other fun stuff that goes with it. I can imagine a car mechanic, fiddling with wires and knobs and bolts and hollering into the engine, "COME already, for crissakes! What the hell else do I have to DO?"

Not that there's anything wrong with that. As long as the guy doesn't insist on cuddling afterward.

separated at birth

I just had a thought today--hey, it happens--and forgive me if someone else has already noticed this similarity. If you remember Max Headroom, you'll realize even their voices are similar.

whack job

I heard the Sopranos series finale was last night.

Here's what I know about the Sopranos: the main mob guy was Tony. Little Steven was also in it, which doesn't sound like a very intimidating mob-type name. Not like Philip "Chicken Man" Testa (who inspired Bruce Springsteen’s song Atlantic City, which opens with the lines “Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night/Now they blew up his house too”) or Harry "the Hump" Riccobene, two real-life mobsters in Philadelphia. Apparently, one did not address Harry by his nickname, or his other nickname, "the Hunchback," without fear of some gruesome reprisal.

One other thing I know about the Sopranos: there's a Tony Sopranos pizza joint in nearby Deptford. There's gotta be some copyright infringement going on there.

Evidently, I'm the only person in the country who never saw one fuckin' groundbreaking episosde of the Sopranos. Not a one. The only reason I know it's over is because of this ridiculous hue and cry about how lame the last episode was. Waaaaah. Cancel HBO and get on with your lives, nitwits.

Nevertheless, I do feel a little out of the loop, and yearned--just a little--to get in on some of this hip mob action. How to do that now? Hmmmm. I know! I want a name! A mob name!

I was happy to see that anyone can get a cool mob name, and you don't even need membership. Mine's "The Butcher." What's yours?

offend me

Ok, Mike, I'll play. Mike has tagged me with this offensive meme, and up until recently I didn't even know how to pronounce meme, so.

• Religions other than my own are wrong because ______
  they don't rely on extraterrestrial transport to reach the next dimension.

• Although it's not politically correct, I like to make fun of _____
  people I envy. Yeah, you and your snotty kids in private school and your stinking McMansion and your goddamn SUV with the stupid OBX sticker on the window...I'm talking to you.

• Ways that George Bush is not like the Anti-Christ include ______
  um.....uh...other than the Anti-Christ being smart and articulate, I can't think of any. See

http://www.bushisantichrist.com/

• The celebrity rumor that I wish to start is _____
  Tom Cruise has a button penis.

• Kids suck because _____
  They can eat Cocoa Puffs and Cap'n Crunch Peanut Butter cereal together and not feel totally guilty when they wash it down with a mimosa.

Mike, are you checking my answers? Are they right?

bitching and sniping

This is kinda what my angry neighbor looks like:

I'm sure she's really a lovely woman, and was just having a bad day.

Meanwhile, I caught part of my game last night, the first time in a decade, anyway. I like it; my hips don't, though. You're always in motion, backing up throws, up and down. I'm a fairly intimidating presence on the field, although I don't mean to be. I'm really downright easygoing! However, one gal tripped over me as I was blocking the plate, and she gave me a dirty look and some comment about how she was hurt, wahhhh; I could hear her sniping on the bench. How about a left-field triple over your head, bitch? Glad to oblige. Ha! Ha! (It might have been a home run if it didn't take me a month just to get out of the box. Like cartoon characters--maybe Fred Flinstone--when they're trying to go somewhere fast but their legs just whirl and spin and they don't go anywhere? That's me.)

As a rule, I do not get drawn into the sniping and bitching, not even when my own team does it. I'm a lover; a peacemaker. I'm there to play, and I play hard, and that's the best defense against bitching and sniping.

But I see there's a theme going on here: I really have a problem with conflict.

more neighborly love

My neighborhood is rather old and, some might say, charming. Realtors call it "desirable," but to me, that's a word best and only used in romance novels. Our houses share an alley with the houses behind us.

A couple years ago, new neighbors moved in behind us, about 2 houses down. They tore down the nice little one-car garage, which meshed with the relative quaintness of the block, and built this massive 2-story structure, big enough to block all available sunlight, conduct a probably illegal car-repair business and house the occasional ne'r-do-well relative from Gloucester, one of whom gave Remy a black eye. Other neighbors have called the cops on them because of "excessive trash" and having too many cars on their property.

Now, we don't really know these people well, and we don't care to. Their kids are creepy--if it's ok to call kids creepy, and I think it is; they have this vacant, children-of-the-corn quality.

So we don't talk to them, and we're not talking to psycho-daughter's family anymore.

A new family moved in next door several months ago: a woman, a man and a little boy. (We say hello, but that's about where our communication with them ends.) It was our understanding that this was not a nuclear family. A boyfriend? The kid's dad? The boy's not there all the time. But the boy and the guy have the same name? What gives? We don't know. I was tempted to find out as I started out on a walk one evening a little while ago, when I heard this:

"NO, Billy, you're a fucking asshole! Fuck YOU!"

Followed by sounds of male mumbling.

"I was in my FUCKING OFFICE, BILLY. You're an IDIOT! FUCK YOU!"

More male mumbling, followed by more very loud cursing. Their windows were open, of course.

This kind of arguing really makes me nervous and uncomfortable. I don't argue like this, but I know people do, and I envy them for it: they can REALLY let their feelings out! That's healthy!

I stopped on the porch, and could see them in the kitchen window. Then I did what any good neighbor would do: I crouched down, tiptoed off the porch and snuck closer to the fence to listen in. Then I continued walking, and could hear them a block away.

This was to be the first of an ongoing series of shrieking, obscenity-laced arguments I've heard coming from their house. I don't know these people, except she works (in a fucking office somewhere) and he, apparently, does not. He comes outside to mow the lawn, sand the random dresser, smoke cigarettes and cough and spit in the yard.

Oh, and they also have two pit bulls.

I guess I should try to love my neighbors, but here's how I see it: they're all frigging crazy.

can I see the future or what?

Ok, this'll be the last Chase Utley thing I post for awhile, now that the restraining order is in effect. ;)



That's right: my own 5-speed Vibrating Chase Utley Bobblehead (see previous post).

This little gem was up for a silent auction Friday at our elementary school's annual Mayfair. I split my tickets between the Cole Hamels signed baseball (an investment) and the bobblehead (a dust collector). It was the last prize to be auctioned off. I was working the putting green ("No! Don't wave the clubs around like they're light sabres!" "No, YOU go get the ball, I told you not to hit it so hard." "No, I'm sorry, we're out of Ring-Pops.") when I heard my name announced...

...and literally squealed and skipped all the way to the table to collect my prize. "I won! I won!" I hollered. (I don't usually win stuff, so you can imagine my delight.) Boo was nearby, hiding his face in embarrassment, while I could hear Remy somewhere on the grounds going "woo-woo-woo!"

It doesn't much look like Chase, but I do like his little soul patch. Now the question is: do I save it forever in the attic and have it buried with me? Or do I take it out of the box and play with it?

ball games

I think I’ve mentioned several times to anyone within earshot that perhaps the best way to celebrate Mother’s day is to just give the woman some time to herself and buy her food. Anything above that is gravy: gifts, a day at the spa, flowers, a puppy…all extra, welcome displays of appreciation, but not necessary.

So of course, my family decides it’s a great idea to take me out to a Phillies game, where I have to referee squabbling between the boys.

But at least I didn’t have to get up and buy my own Schmitter (a sandwich--named after the legendary yet reviled 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt--featuring unidentifiable meats and gloppy dressing. In retrospect, it was pretty gross, but I enjoyed it at the time. It’s one of those foods that tastes better at the ballpark.) And I had a beer to go with my Schmitter. One can’t devote themselves to the game more than wolfing down a sloppy Schmitter and drinking a $6.50 cup of beer.

The real reason they took me to the game was because it was Chase Utley Fleece Blanket day--the only way I’ll ever get Chase Utley to lay on top of me. I wouldn’t call myself a soccer mom, but I do cart around the obligatory fleece blanket or two in the van.

Next promotion, maybe the Phillies will come up with something a little edgier: The Chase Utley Warming Massage Lotion. The Chase Utley Deluxe 5-Speed Vibrating Bobblehead. A Role-Playing Adventure with Chase Utley, In Which You’re the Umpire and He’s Been Very, Very Bad. I’d pay for that giveaway.

Unfortunately, the Phillies could only muster up 3 hits and lost this very uninspiring, lazy game on Mother’s day. Still. It was a beautiful, sunny day; I got my blanket; and later we went out for Chinese. All in all, a pretty good Mother’s day.

psycho girl AND her mom are looney

My stomach churned last night as I thought about how I was finally going to approach the psycho girl’s mother.

After being told by the guidance counselor and the vice principal a couple of months ago to leave my son alone, she’s still at it, with the taunting and the teasing. Last night before their school concert, she was saying things to Boo, and he told her to just leave him alone. She said, “No.” No, she won’t leave him alone.

Before I went to school officials again--and believe me, I didn’t want to--I thought it might be best to at least say something to the mom. Maybe I wouldn’t have to say anything to school officials. Maybe she’d hear me out—as I think I would if someone came to ME and said, yeah, we’re having a problem with your son. I’d want to know what that problem was, and find out his role in it. Seems reasonable, right?

Problem is, I head for the hills when confrontation’s nearby. So last night, my heart was racing, my stomach churned, and hesitantly I planned a strategy, like I was about to invade a frigging hostile country.

I would be nice. I would not yell. I would not blame or point fingers. I would listen.

This morning I decide to run over there for just a few minutes before work.

Knock on the door. Mom opens the door, giving me dagger eyes.

Immediately I’m shaken. Wait, I’M the one with the beef. WTF. Don’t you give me dagger eyes, bitch.

“Uh, yeah, uh…(looking out into the street, trying desperately to be nice)…I, uh, know there’s some tension between our families.”

“Yeah. It’s more than that.”

“Well, yeah, I guess that’s why I’m here. Boo tells me that psycho-daughter said……”

Well, I didn’t get a chance to finish. She just laid into me with the same crazy delusional wave of shit that her daughter says to Boo: Being friends with us was “the biggest mistake of our lives,” she informed me. Her daughter has done nothing. My family is the tormentor of their lives. The dh is the town psychopath. Boo is close behind. We all need counseling. I’m delusional. The entire town thinks there’s something wrong with us. WE NEED TO STOP FOCUSING ON THEM!

In reality, we hardly ever even see these people; we’re not even around half the time with games and little league stuff. We don’t sit down and have discussions about them, which apparently they must do, because they’re all on the same script.

I really just couldn’t get a word in, so now, of course, she still doesn’t understand that her daughter is quite simply a bully. I was incredulous; I mean, I couldn’t even respond to most of what she said. She didn’t listen; she didn’t even hear me. It was one of the most bizarre, surreal experiences I’ve ever had with another human being.

So what’s that they say about fences being good neighbors? I’d say we need a walled fortress.

cosmic softball diva

You'd think something interesting could have happened in the last two weeks while I was gone, something profound or wonderful that was worth blogging about. Maybe some life-altering decision, some mind-bending realization, or perhaps...the greatest epiphany ever experienced.

Instead, I'm coaching a girls softball team, 11-12-year-olds. I don't even have girls. Now I know why.

Don't get me wrong. I like girls. They're amusing, they're cute...but they're bonkers.

Ya can't get them to sit still in the dugout, which isn't much different from the boys. But instead of kind of hanging on the fence, cheering on their teammates...they do these dopey choreographed cheers, shaking their asses and doing the frigging Macarena in the dugout.

In response, the girls from the other team dance and cheer louder. And it goes back and forth.

There's no choreographed cheering in softball! When the hell did THAT happen? I didn't do that when I played at that age. Ya went in, ya played, ya cheered your teammates on, and that was it. Now it's now a big frigging Broadway musical?!

And there's this pitcher. She plays on two teams, but our lowly Little League team is her second choice. She shows up one game and expects to pitch, because that is what Madmoiselle does. So she pitches some, and jams her finger on a throw back from the catcher.

OMG, EAR-PIERCING SCREAM, followed by LOUD wailing, and then she crumples--literally crumples, almost like the Wicked Witch of the West but a little faster--onto the mound. Wailing.

The other team's coach goes running out. The one dad who's helping me goes running out. I stand there. I don't quite know what to do. I mean, it's a girl, for starters, and how the hell do I deal with that noise out there? She just wasn't pushing my empathy button. I may not have girls, but I am one, so I figure she's probably overreacting a tad. So I wait a moment, and stroll out there.

"You ok?"

Sniffle. "I dunnnnno....I jjj--jjj---jjjammed my fff--ffff-ffinger." Sniffle.

"All right. Get up and pitch some. See if it still works."

She tries and she can't, so I pull her out, put some ice on her finger, which--miraculously--looks ok. She goes back in and plays 1st base next inning.

A week later, she gets hit in the face with a ball while playing first. Got a big shiner. Still has it.

Must be cosmic softball diva punishment.

blowin' in the wind

We’re in the midst of what some quaintly call a Nor’easter. As in, “Look out, Ethel, there’s a Nor’easter a-blowin!” Before it got here, it was blowing around Texas and parts of the Midwest. Do they call it a “Mid’wester” there?

These storms are nasty, violent evidence of the power of nature. The Nor’easter doesn’t just rain. It:

“lashes the East Coast” (Toronto Star)
“pounds the eastern seaboard” (The Age, Australia)
“pummels” (Mail & Guardian Online)
“slams” (Disaster News Network)
“kicks East Coast in the shins and then runs away” (Weekly World News)

And then, because all the good action verbs have been taken, it always eventually resorts to the weary cliché, “wreaks havoc.”

It “brings” things with it, like it was coming to your house for a party: things like “heavy rain” “flooding” “high winds” “evacuations” “deviled eggs” and “wine-in-a-box.”

The Nor’easter doesn’t just represent nature’s wrath. As Pat Robertson likes to remind us from time to time, God’s wrath often steers the weather.

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," he said last May. Gee, ya think? "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest," he said.


Robertson has a rather abysmal record of weather forecasting. He predicted that God would punish Orlando with “earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor” because the city voted to fly rainbow flags during Disneyworld’s annual Gay Day. Ok, a meteor isn’t exactly a weather event, but it would be a pretty cool way to let us know He’s pissed.

Robertson asked God to alter the course of Hurricane Gloria, which ended up causing billions in damage in many states along the coast. Oops! And he later beseeched God to prevent Hurricane Isabel from hitting Virginia Beach, where his headquarters are located. It ended up being the costliest and deadliest hurricane of the 2003 season. Ruh-roh!

So let’s see if I have this correctly: God controls the weather. Pat talks to God. Then Pat controls the weather. God realizes Pat’s a looney, suggests that Nature takes over, tells Satan that Pat will be visiting very, very soon. And he’s bringing the deviled eggs.

more horrors at the Ack-a-me

Maybe it’s because I have a history of paranoia involving supermarkets, or maybe it’s because I seem to spend so much time in them—another lifelong dream fulfilled—but I find them endlessly fascinating.

For instance, I had previously blathered on about stray carts in the parking lot and the stupidheads who leave them there. Here’s a perfect example. Here are four carts, perhaps suicide carts, planning their next mission: rolling into adjacent parked cars as if pushed by an unseen hand. Maybe that’s why they seem to congregate: to plan revenge on the morons who leave them there.



“Yeah. Joey, you get the red Ford pickup; aim for the Bush/Cheney bumper sticker. Myrna, you hit the Escalade. REALLY HARD! LEAVE A MARK! You, Bongo: See that one stopped in the fire lane? It’s been there for 10 minutes. Aim for the driver’s side. Plan for injury.”

If you look closely, you can see the cart corral at the entrance of the supermarket JUST STEPS AWAY.

Inside, the horrors abound.

Look at this box:


Ack! A flying giant ravioli saucer has landed on planet Earth! The biggest ravioli the world has ever seen!

I mean, I understand the statement “enlarged to show texture.” But there is no texture. It’s a perfectly formed, uniformly smooth …pasta breast implant. And it looks so tasty pictured there frozen on the conveyor belt!

To avoid confusion—or perhaps add to it—the box prominently says it’s large (not small!) round (not square!) cheese (not meat!) ravioli (not tortellini!)…just in case you couldn’t tell from the picture. How they fit a dozen bowler hat-sized raviolis into that box escapes me.

I laugh at this box every time I go in the supermarket, which perhaps says more about me than it should.

wow, now THIS is a bummer

"Sue me if I play too long."

--Steely Dan

From everywhere:

"The UN report on global warning, in a sense, is a more focused indictment of the world's biggest polluters -- the industrialized nations -- and a more specific identification of the victims. Last-minute negotiations led to deleting timelines for future events and scaling back the degree of confidence in some projections. Both actions will ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.

"Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the political interference."Once is enough," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped draft parts of the report. "The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game." The report paints a bleak picture of the future.

In light of this report--which basically says we're just like caged animals, shitting up our own home because we have nowhere else to go and we're too stupid and lazy to figure that out--I had to post this. I read this piece by Carl Sagan a few times a year, because it's so lovely and so sad.

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.



"The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

boy nuts

I've not been very good at this since I started this job. That kinda blows.

The boys have a swim meet this weekend in Delaware, the Eastern Regionals. So far they've dropped all their times; Remy dropped 10 seconds off one time, and they're up there in the top 10 in all their events. So they're having a great meet.

As a reward of sorts, we took them to Cracker Barrel on the way home last night. Mmmmm, good eatin'.

As we walked in, Remy asked why so many old people go there. I said, well, the food's all mushy and goopy, easy for old people to eat. We decided that should be the new slogan.

Cracker Barrel. Food so mushy, even old people can eat it.

So we go in; it's packed. We have to mill about in the gift shop along with a busload of tourists (tourists?! in NJ?!). Boo finds one of those stress-relieving heads, the one that you squeeze and its eyes and ears pop out, and HAS to have it.

We're seated, eat our delicious dinner of country-fried steak, chicken and dumplins, biscuits, etc, watch as our blood pressure and cholesterol levels skyrocket...and then the boys have hot fudge sundae desserts.

Ooops. There are nuts in the sundaes. Nuts don't belong in sundaes, according to the boys. I forget exactly how the conversation started, but it went something like this:

Me, earnestly: "Did you eat your nuts?"

Peals of giggles from both boys.

Me, playing along now: "What, you don't like your nuts?"

More giggles.

"Here, give it to me. I'll eat your nuts."

Loud guffaws, soda squirting out of nose.

"I like nuts. They taste good. I could eat nuts all day. What, you guys don't like your nuts?"

More howling.

"They're not very big, are they?"

BAHAHAHHAA.

Then, Remy says, earnestly: "What happens if they go bad?"

"Well, nuts can get all black and shriveled up when they go bad."

BAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

That continued for a little while until they finally figured out--and it took them awhile--that I was on to them. There's nothing that brings the family together quite like sharing a little sex joke with your kids.