Monday, December 28, 2009

New Monk!

Look at its twee face! It's distress calls are little squeaks of adorablishisness. Go to Zoo Borns for the details on this miraculous little birth. Prosh beeb!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Thank, Snowpoop

So, here I am. I made myself think the worst, but even my VAST imagination never allowed me to consider that my ass would be canceled straight out of a visit home. Which it did. Long story short: 15 minutes before the car showed the website declared my flight cancelled, I cancelled my car, waited on hold for 2.5 hours to discover I could not even hope to get home before Christmas, and here I am. Instead of fighting and hating and gnashing and thrashing to get a speck of vacay, I just decided to reschedule for a later date. Probably January, around MLK day, I think. So, it left me here to find "staples" (read: Toaster Strudels) and take pretty pictures. As much as this storm jacked my plans for family togetherness, I have to say it was a beautiful thing. Some fun facts:

--snow started plummeting off the roof around 4 am, continuing on well into this afternoon, causing me to near-pee every time. I actually yelled once. It scared the whoseywhatsit out of me.

--shoveling gents have time to help little old ladies through the snow. Witness below. It made me so warm and happy to see, I could hardly feel bitter.

--pure snow in Brooklyn is like water in Hades: so rare, so lovely. See below. Kids were going absolutely bananas in all the white wonderment. Though treading through the treacherous paths did require some concentration: yellow and brown snow, BAD.

--watching the Wizard of Oz makes me tearful. We were raised on this movie. All of the songs are like lullaby's from my infancy. The dancing, the songs, Toto! Lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! The curling feet at the beginning freaked me out the most when I was a kid...and I never knew just how hard this movie would hit me on a day like today, when I have to fore go home, at least for a little while. Tears!

Marshmallow peep trash. Note that some snowmonster has already noshed it.

Stairway to Traction. Lesser known Led Zep hit.

Fence full of snow. Better than face full of snow. Take my word for it.

Powdered Ho Ho of my dreeeeams.

Purity, realized.

Mashed potaters. Was so hungry on my way to the store...

The helping hand. Sweet, right?

PS. The Brittney Murphy news is shocking to all, I am sure. It is sad that our first assumption is drugs...can we believe that it might be a genetic thing, or something, maybe? At least until we hear otherwise. Most people will remember her for Clueless (in which she was awesome) but I will forever love her for Girl, Interrupted, and her crazy chicken issues:

Daisy: It has an eat-in chicken.
Susanna: I think you mean an eat-in kitchen.
Daisy: That's what I said, asshole.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Shiny Shined

I love getting my hair done. It requires a certain amount of patience since my hairdresser cajoles and harasses me for only coming in twice a year. I asked him to rate the health of my hair this time around and he gave me a 6.5. Rude! He's not even talking about the actual health. For that, he should have given me a solid 2. He's on my case about not coming in for hair cuttings and stylings. That's all. Grifter! My gray hair totally hides the fact that I'm not that blond, so he's just bitter about the cash monies I'm not sending his way. That's all right, though. I mean, look at the shiny:


Note that I've only shown bits and pieces. The identity of the innocent shall forever be protected.

Things I Hate Right Now

Tiger Woods Coverage. Look. I get it. His promotional persona doesn't match his horndoggity reality. And yet I can't muster the strength to give a flip. Please explain. NO, don't remind me of his iconic, pure status. Because last I checked he's a jock. Not to dismiss jocks out of hand, but, well, OK, maybe I'm dismissing the general "purity" of the aforementioned jocks. The whole world really bought into the whole Tiger Woods Is Not Just a Golfer but a God ridiculousness? Really? Because I hate to tell you this but...he's a golfer. A GOLF. ER. In case you are wondering, that's no more and no less than a simple jock. And, at best, an exceptional jock. Yay for him, yay yay yay for all the athletic superiority, but honestly, you don't know him. Only people who really know him, know him. And, whilst some of them are learning that probably wasn't the "great, stand up guy" they thought he was, the rest of us are just spectators at his wildly borrrrring golf match. It sucks that he's likely a cheater, but I fail to understand how this is worthy of the media coverage that has resulted from the equally borrrrring Thanksgiving wreck that started this whole mess. To be clear: Who gives a flying squirrel? I don't. I think no better nor worse of him. He's just as boring as he was before. Just more annoyingly visible.

Snowstorms When I Plan To Fly. Maaaaaaaaaaan. I'm so worried right now. They say the major dumpage will happen overnight, ending only a couple of hours before my flight is supposed to take off. I haven't really had to deal with this before, so I guess this was inevitable. I hate air travel anyway, so I guess I'm just going to have to take deep breaths and think of a happy place. The flying itself is calming/boring -- it's always the airport part of it that makes me rage and snarl. If I just believe it's going to be horrible, then nothing will surprise me tomorrow.

Things That I Love Right Now

Just saw the Lost promo. It promised little, forecasted everything. This is the end! How am I going to watch every season by February 2??? Ug.

Re-reading The Lovely Bones on the train, because nothing else I've read has garnered so much unsolicited interaction. Mostly from women...they just stare at the cover and smile or nod, one even pulled my sleeve and told me how much she loved the book. Another passed by and said "great book." It is a great book. This time around, I'm appreciating it on a different level (the first time I was an emotional wreck) because it is an ode to all of the little girls lost. As much as anyone feels a pang of horror when we hear of these events on the news, these murdered children are never real to anyone but those that actually knew them. The Lovely Bones, while fictional, brings one of these children to life, so to speak, and in making her real it's impossible to ignore how real, valuable, and treasured all of those real children were and are to their families.

The flip side of reading The Lovely Bones, especially on the train? Every guy looks like Mr. Harvey. I can't even tell you how many times I looked up to see some Sketchy Sketcherstein looking at me, the book, or both of us guiltily, crossly, fearfully, or all of the above. It's more likely, of course, that it just triggers my overdeveloped sense of mistrust. I'll I can say is: Back off, chum. I will seriously shank you with my bookmark.

JERSEY SHORE!!!!!!!!! Look, I love it. I love it so much. I love Snooky, I love The Situation, I love the whole, crispy-haired cast. I even kind of love Jwwow though just looking at her is probably giving me the eye herps. I'm not interested in fighting about the terms "guido/guidette" nor am I interested in debating the airing/non-airing of "the punch." I'm just loving the rich Italian sub-set culture and the brilliance of the producers who share the very best stuff and introduce as many layers and nuance as a show like this could hope to expect. I love that the inclusion of a cast member calling himself The Situation has led to everything being referred to as some sort of "situation" or another. I mean, it's all a Situation. I love the wildly inappropriate, delusional, spastic, hysterical dance moves, not to mention the equally inappropriate, delusional, spastic, hysterical moves the cast members have made on each other and an ever changing rotation of Jersey shore singles looking to mingle. If your hate for the show, or just the idea of the show, makes you want to hurl, or hurl an object in the general direction of Jersey, you should at least consider the fact that this Situation would have existed with or without Mtv's cameras filming it all. Yes, the cast was brought together by Mtv, but they would have gone anyway and probably would have gotten themselves into similar situations and configurations regardless. Unlike The Real World, the house is not some tricked out pleasure dome, and the pretense was never to have seven strangers come together to find out what its like to live together blah blah blah, growth, maturity, hard knocked life yadda yadda, etc. There is no pretense with the Jersey shore. That is, at least how I see it, the situation.