Freakonomics

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything earns a 2. Although I'm not sure my ratings really apply in this instance as it isn't the typical book read by the person of female persuasion at Life at the condo (i.e., me). That being said, this is a fascinating book that playfully attacks conventional wisdom while it uncovers new answers to questions you might have pondered yourself from time to time. When you want to know why the 1990s experienced a significant drop in crime, you don't immediately think "I know. It's because that one lady fought to get abortion rights for all women." Steven Levitt, economist-extraordinaire, is the person responsible for asking and then answering the right questions. Did you know a pool is more dangerous to a child than a gun you have in your home? Did you realize cheating exists in Sumo wrestling? Did you know somebody once named her child "Shithead"? (Pronounced "Shuh-teed," but still...). As Levitt himself explains, there is no unifying theme to this book, but who cares? The book, co-written with Stephen Dubner from The New York Times, is a speedy romp through a topic I had traditionally considered to be quite boring and uninspired (i.e., economics - boy was I wrong!). Of course, since I've learned that "Catherine" as an appealing baby name of mine has almost hit the overpopularized zone, I may have to start thinking of a replacement. (Not that Darr and I are trying to get pregnant. We're not. But when you work at a baby boutique and the majority of women you know are pregnant, were recently pregnant, or are trying to get pregnant you can't help but think about baby names.) Definitely pick this book up. Definitely read it. Definitely enjoy it. I did.

Cooking with Jesus

Click here to get your very own Jesus pan.

E-mail Spam

And the winner of today's Favorite E-mail Spam award goes to "Barbra Garland" who addresses the following subject in the spam e-mail she sent to me: "Shame of sex? We can change it."

Dear Barbra,
I don't know if Barbra is your real name and I don't know if that is really what you discuss in your e-mail as I'm not dumb enough to open it. It is undoubtably a piece of spam e-mail if ever there was one. So while I admit I have been feeling an inordinate amount of shame regarding my sex as of late, I'd appreciate it if you would cease sending me further e-mails of this nature. I have a tenuous hold on my femininity right now. I wouldn't want additional e-mails to persuade me that a penis of my very own was the answer to all my troubles and worries.
Sincerely,
Christie*

*Hi. I'm Sarcasm. Have we met?


Note: When I read the subject line I perceived it as if they (i.e., the spam-sending freaks) were telling me if I felt shame of my sex, they could change my sex. Darren read the subject line as if they were telling me if I felt shame about sex, they could change the shame. Turns out he was right. He got the same spam e-mail and it is for some Viagra-like medication to help with arousal. Although really, my way is funnier - peddling penises to the internet public filled with shame of their sex.

Memorial Day - Parks and Powell's

Today was a most excellent day. You know the kind. You appreciate absolutely everything and all is perfect and wonderful. We slept in late, walked up to Marsee Baking for breakfast - a ginger molasses cookie and iced chai for me and a bagel sandwich with egg and cheese and regular coffee for Darr - and then stopped off at Sellwood Park to play ball with Beauty the wonder dog. All was done at a leisurely pace. When we finally returned home Darr did his homework and I researched a place we're considering going to for our first anniversary, which is a mere 27 days away, counting today. After a trip to the store, with Beauty the wonder dog in tow, we came home and made ourselves cheeseburgers for dinner. Mine was just a meat and cheddar cheese deal, minus the condiments because I think condiments are gross. Darr used blue cheese instead of cheddar and added arugula to his burger. When I questioned Darr about the addition of the green food, he explained that it made the hamburger "less dense", which makes me think, um, that's okay but weird, I guess. I've never really understood the whole 'let's stack hot meat on a bun and add condiments (sick!) and cold vegetables' thing. Hot food should be hot, cold food should be cold and never the twain shall met. In my book, foods are separate but equal. To each his/her own, I suppose. A short while later, we went to another dog park next door, played soccer with Beauty the wonder dog (using tennis balls), and read our books. There were two of the fattest dogs I have ever seen there. Their humans were of the XXL size of life, too. Coincidence? I felt bad because the one dog that was trying real hard to play like the other dogs was wheezing and drooling as it chased the ball across the grass. His/her bark sounded labored and scratchy. Another dog owner commented that the other fat dog looked like a lion and when I took a closer look I hate to say I did see a resemblance between the dog and the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia movie, and that was before the lion was shaved and looked all thin and pathetic. Anyway, the weather was fantastic - blue sky, pleasant temperature, occasional slight breeze. Oh, and the bagpipers are back! Every year around this time a team of old men bagpipers start practicing at Oaks Park for the upcoming summer of parades, etc. While we couldn't see them, the sound of their bagpipes drifted down the river and created a pleasant Scottish din over the dog park. Like most other dog owners we are usually able to identify the dogs at the park but have trouble remembering their human companions. Dogs at the park today include Henry the Whippet, Maximus the Bull Mastiff mix, Mouse the Border Collie, and several others. Finally, we took Beauty home and drove to Powell's for some much needed book purchasing. With $50 budgets, we hit the aisles and searched for the sale book treasures on the shelves. Here's what we added to our home library:

American Woman by Susan Choi (me)
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan (me)
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (me)
The Anxiety of Everyday Objects by Aurelie Sheehan (me)
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (me)
How I Became Stupid by Martin Page (me)
The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell (me)
A Call by Ford Maddox Ford (Darr)
You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers (Darr)
The Archivist by Martha Cooley (Darr)
Herzog by Saul Bellow (Darr)
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (Darr)

A Crime in the Neighborhood

A Crime in the Neighborhood earns a solid 3. (I explained my book ratings in February.) This book is an easy read but only because of the style in which it is written, no crazy sentence structures, difficult context, rarely seen vocabulary, etc. The content is somewhat difficult to wade through - a child is molested and murdered, a father has an affair and leaves his family, a young girl discovers her darker, manipulative self - as much of what happens is not considered the nice, fluffy, happy stuff of childhood. Perhaps that is why the book is such an interesting read. Here's a shockingly relevant section that stood out enough to have me relay it here:

Setup - The neighbors are discussing the newly created "Neighborhood Night Watch" that has been established since the murder of the young boy:

"That evening, Mrs. Lauder told my mother that Mr. Lauder and the other men intended to question any unfamiliar men they encountered on their rounds.

'They're going to say, "State your business." And if the guy can't explain why he's here, they're going to drive him over to the police station.'

'I think that may be unconstitutional,' my mother said.

Mrs. Lauder looked suprised. 'Don't you want to keep the kids safe? That's all they're trying to do.'"

Chilling, isn't it?

Consider the President's claim that he can do whatever he deems "necessary" in order to keep Americans safe. As one of my coworkers recently stated: "Those that choose safety over freedom deserve neither." If you have any questions about what that means, see me. I'm happy to explain.

Back to the book, it hits the biggies in literature - fear, regret, love and more importantly loss of love, innocence vs. maturity, greed. I'd take a million books like this over Dan Brown's horrifically large pieces o' crap books any day.

Friends, Food, & Alcohol - Hoorah!

Last night, Darr and I had some friends over (i.e., Ann, Raymond, Sara, and Josh) for dinner, drinks, and a night of conversation. My recollection this morning is a little hazy - we polished off three bottles of wine and one bottle of champagne between the five of us, not to mention individual drinks including beer and hard liquor - but there were a lot of different topics covered over the course of the evening, which began around 6:15pm and lasted until just before or just after 1am. Politics, travel, Starwood points (Darr and I have got to get cracking on earning these), baby stuff - the one of us that wasn't drinking is pregnant and set to drop mid-July, work (ugh!), movies, treehouses...you get the point, we talked about a lot of different crap.

We tried some new recipes, always a nerve-wracking venture, and most of it turned out okay. Let's see, we started with mushroom risotto, which I thought was fantastic but Darren described as "okay". (He's not much of a mushroom guy.) This was followed by braised lamb shanks with oranges and olives (Stinco di Agnello con Aranci e Olive) - weird, I know, but totally tasty. Then we had my disaster of a dessert rhubard and strawberry fools. My rendition looked nothing like the picture in the magazine (Did they forget the puree step?). And I must make a mental note for the future to not try to construct this dessert in wine glasses after drinking copious amounts of wine. Not pretty. Then we served some rather oddly shaped handmade chocolate truffles. A short while later we broke out the Cheddar Beer Kettle Chips, because as party rule #32 of the How to Host a Party, Win Friends, and Influence People handbook states: "A party isn't a party if you don't serve chips."

Darr's got a bit of a headache this morning and I'm working to combat the creation of one so we're both drinking large amounts of water to rehydrate. And because our kitchen still has some residual dirty items left to clean, we're heading out to Bertie Lou's, our favorite local breakfast haunt, to get something in our bellies.

Piece of Cake

I'm surprised it has taken me this long to compose an entry highlighting the wonderfulness of Piece of Cake. We discovered Marilyn and her delectable cakes several years ago and have been avid fans and supporters ever since. If there is a birthday, wedding, anniversary, holiday, or a general need for great cake, we buy her cake. Accept no subtitutes. Lucky for us, Piece of Cake is within walking distance so we've got access pretty much whenever we have a craving but that is unfortunate for our expanding waistlines. (Not solely attributable to her cake.)

Stats Midterm

Darr has an exam in 13 minutes. I'm telepathically sending him a brain power boost with my minimal mathematical skills attached. Bon chance, mon amour.

Taylor Hicks - Our New American Idol

Holy Christ - Taylor won! In an absurdly long 2-hour finale, featuring horrendous renditions of songs by the American Idol wannabes, Taylor Hicks ended up taking home the big prize. And I'm happy about that. Perhaps most interesting was the caliber of real stars that appeared on the show - Mary J. Blige, Prince, and Dionne Warwick, to name a few. For a brief moment, when the chords to Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me began to play, I almost expected Elton fucking John to walk onto the stage. (Sadly, he did not, it was Clay Aiken. Let's chalk up this event as one more reason to believe that kid is gay, not that there is anything wrong with that.) Seacrest annoys the hell out of me, Randy Jackson says "dude" and "dawg* pound" more than any respectable person should, and Paula has an endless stream of nonsensical jargon that spews from her mouth. These elements make the show unbearable. But then you hear a phrase from the oft hilarious and usually dead-on critic, Simon Cowell, that brings it all into perspective and you realize that someone on that show does have an ounce of sanity left. But I digress...the point of this blog entry is that Taylor won (as I predicted) and now I can look forward to his cd release, which will hopefully have plenty of his Joe Cocker-esque vocal stylings with some blues harp thrown in for good measure.

Darr's Comment for the Evening: "Medleys suck ass."

*Intentionally misspelled

Finding Music: Open Pandora's Box

My boss came by my office earlier today and introduced me to Pandora by the Music Genome Project. Pandora allows you to create your own internet radio station. Type the name of an artist or band and Pandora starts playing music from that artist or band, followed by similar music in that genre. You can tailor selections even further by advising Pandora when you like a song (thumbs up), when you don't (thumbs down), and when a song needs to disappear for a month before returning to your radio. You can create up to 100 different radio stations for your listening pleasure. After a test drive of a few songs, a simple registration gives you free access to Pandora forever; however, you can choose to be ad-free for a price. (The way I see it, ads on this site aren't really going to bother you all that much unless you're the type to stare at your computer while the music plays. Hopefully you aren't that type of person. Because really - how weird is that?) An added bonus, Pandora is respectfully polite, apologizing for bad song selections and promising never to air them on the radio station again.

Nike+iPod

Two of my favorite companies, Apple and Nike, are joining forces to bring the world something new and exciting - shoes that track workout information and then relay that information to the iPod nano. Okay, so I don't have an iPod nano - I'm still back in the days of my pink mini iPod - but it's really cool to know this capability exists. I slap on my Nikes, plug in my soon-to-be-purchased iPod nano (perhaps Darr will let me borrow his?), hit the pavement, and wonderous things magically happen. And when I write "magically happen" I actually mean that, after purchasing the Nike+iPod Sport Kit and using it appropriately, the sensor on my shoes will measure my activity (miles, pace, etc.) and wirelessly transfer the info to the receiver on the nano. How cool is that?! The iPod becomes my very own personal trainer. And, Apple is soon going to introduce a Nike section in iTunes that will have preset music perfect for workouts. Plus, the folks at Apple have added the Power Song Activation switch, for those moments you need that one specific song to get you through a particularly challenging section of a run. What will these clever bastards think of next, eh?

IM Conversation #235,617

christie: I'm sorry, did you say something about piece of cake?
christie: damnit! no you didn't.
darren: cake would be good
darren: you should so go get us a treat

Sunday Evening

Darr's lying on the couch, I'm blogging while snacking on black licorice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on the t.v. - Warren has shot Buffy and a stray bullet hit Tara and now Willow the witch is about to go all fritzy, the cats are tired from watching the thunder and lightning show outside and are now resting, and Beauty the wonder dog is sleeping on her bed. It's Sunday evening at Life at the condo.

Sunday Morning

Darr's reading the recently purchased Runners magazine, I'm blogging while drinking cranberry tea with honey, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is on the t.v. - Tara just stood up for her former lesbian lover Willow, the cats are playing on the patio outside, and Beauty the wonder dog is napping after an unusually large breakfast. It's Sunday morning at Life at the condo.

Car Emblem

We bought a little something to spruce up the car and make a statement. As soon as the sunny weather returns, this is going on the back of Sophie for the whole world to enjoy. Happy motoring.

Big Brother is Watching You and Listening to You and Tracking You and...

Darr sent me the link to this cartoon by artist Tom Toles and I immediately knew it had to be thrown up on our blog. I'm feeling particularly angry at all of our politicians as of late, particularly since I began listening to the NPR coverage of the confirmation hearings for Hayden. This cartoon captures the essence of all I'm unable to speak intelligently on, I tend to get a little hot under the collar when discussing issues such as privacy. How can we maintain any personal privacy when our government is secretly tracking its citizens (a.k.a. you, me, and everyone else in the country - are we all suspected terrorists?)? Anywho, I'll get off my soapbox for now and let you enjoy the cartoon. It's really, really good.

Our Celebrity Counterparts

The folks at My Heritage have a demo that allows you to upload a picture of yourself to scan against the 3200 famous peeps they've got in their database to see who you most closely resemble. So of course I had to try this out to see who my famous doppelganger is. I used the following photo, taken while on our honeymoon in New York:
Once uploaded, the demo scans your picture using cool face recognition technology. You get to view the process, which looks something like this:
And then, < insert drum roll > the results.

The closest match they had for me was Twiggy. And it is weird because now that I've been told there is a resemblance, I see one. But, I don't really know Twiggy - she's before my time, so I clicked the arrow to see who else was on the list.

Want to know who else I share similar face composition with? Kate Beckinsale. Sweet Jesus! She's gorgeous! Okay, so she took that horribly bad part in Underworld and it was a sucky vampire movie. (No pun intended. Seriously.) That doesn't change the fact that she is gorgeous and the My Heritage people claim I share a fraction of what makes that beauty possible. (I said "claim". I'm grounded in reality.)

And, because that wasn't enough of an ego boost, I gleefully clicked to reveal the next person in the list. Lo and behold, it's Kristin Davis. The Kristin Davis, who played Charlotte in Sex & the City! A show I just happen to love, which must mean there is some greater force at work here. Really, though, I'm just glad it didn't shoot out Tori Spelling, who I've never thought was pretty and would have been devastated if it had turned out I looked like her. Well, not devastated--but that sort of result would most likely have kicked off research into cosmetic surgery for sure.

Okay, just for shits and giggles, I uploaded Darr's pic (taken at the same time and place as mine) to see where he landed on the celebrity scale. Back in March I wrote about my love for the show House. Now I know why there is such an attraction to the show. Darren is House! (See following pics as proof.)

Doggie Poo

This Josh guy I know was telling me a story a couple of months ago about one of his dogs (brother of the sweet girl in the post below) eating a lot of grass. And then perhaps that causes some problems at the "tail end" of the process, since grass is not exactly digestible by dogs. Cows, yes. Dogs, no.

Anyway -- and this is over breakfast -- he's telling me that sometimes he has to scoot down and "help" his dog by pulling a particularly stubborn piece of grass right out of his dog's bum!

Hmmm. Yes. Well. So. Sure. Uh. OK.

I tell you we almost shipped ours back to the pound when we heard that.

And as I'm sure you've guessed .. it happened to me. This morning. eeewwww! The procedure itself was reasonable: I just grabbed the old girl by the tail, took my (gloved) hand and, well, pulled a particularly stubborn piece of grass right out of my dog's bum. ugh.

Hippie Chick 2006

I participated in the Hippie Chick Race with my friends Tan, Sara, and Mo this morning. Oh, and Mikah the dog was there too. I'll have to remember to bring Beauty the wonder dog next year. The weather was gorgeous, a little chilly at the very beginning but it quickly warmed up once we were in the sun. I loaded the pics on our site, click here if you'd like to take a gander. My favorite shots are of Mikah and a pretty purple flower I saw after the race as I was sucking down some Jamba juice.

Recipe Corner: Pesto

We at Life at the condo like to eat and occasionally we run across recipes that are too good not to share. Welcome to our first installment of Recipe Corner, you should expect more to follow as we are out there, every day, eating.

This recipe comes from a cookbook Darr recently bought during a trip to Costco called The Silver Spoon. It's the definitive Italian cookbook. It is so easy to make you can actually prepare the pesto while the pasta is cooking. Well, this is a true statement if you are cooking dry pasta. It'd be a touch more difficult to accomplish this if you were using fresh pasta that cooks in under two minutes. That being said, it would be possible if all of the ingredients prep work was completed prior to placing the pasta in the boiling water...but I digress. Without further ado, here's the best pesto recipe we've found to date.

Ingredients:
25 fresh basil leaves
scant 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 pine nuts
1 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
1/3 cup romano cheese, freshly grated
salt

Directions:
Put the basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, and a pinch of salt in a food processor. Process briefly at medium speed. Add the cheeses and process again. Drain pasta and place pesto in the pot. Pour the pasta on top of the pesto and mix to combine.

Serves 4

Hosting My First Baby Shower

Earlier today I hosted my first baby shower - for Jyla, my sister-in-law and current member of PLIK (Pregnant Ladies I Know). I avoided the traditional baby shower games because, well, I think they're silly and sort of cheesy, but there was a mound of presents for Jyla and lots of food and drinks - sparkling cider for the mom-to-be. Baby Einstein seemed to be a popular brand with Jyla taking home the activity mat, the bouncer, and the activity chair. The gift to win the Most Likely to Cause Adults to Chuckle award was Boudreaux's Butt Paste. Let's face it, "Butt Paste" is funny stuff. And since Bobby and Jyla chose Winnie the Pooh decor, they got a number of Pooh items including a Pooh clothes hamper, a stuffed Pooh, a Pooh toy, and a Pooh bathrobe. My mom knitted the little white and blue baby slippers (see pic for this blog entry). Should you need a pair of the cutest baby slippers in the world for any ladies you know expecting stork deliveries, see me. I'm her slipper-pimp. :)

There were some folks who couldn't attend so I tried to capture the event digitally. The photos have been uploaded to our web site, which you can view by clicking here.

Friday Night Surprise

I came home from work tonight to find my husband in the shower - normally he's at his desk until 7pm. He planned an evening out - yea! We went to dinner at 3 Doors Down and then to see The Inside Man at one of those decaying old theatres with lots of character and an outdated sound system. It was awesome! And I just wanted to say thanks for a lovely evening out, hon. I had a great time.

Note: If you ever go to 3 Doors Down you've got to try the vodka penne. It's spicy and fabulous.

George Dubya's Numbers

You can read the NY Times article by clicking here.

Brother Nick Buys a House

My brother and his wife Megan have just bought a house in Newberg! It has four bedrooms and a nice backyard and a big kennel! Darren and I look forward to dropping off Beauty the wonder dog so they can dog sit once they're settled in. :)

How much should I weigh?

So, I'm getting a little bit porky again and so am starting to eat better. By "better" I mean making a bag of chips last a minimum of two days. I suppose your ideal weight is something that's particular to each person. I found a site to help me find how much I should weigh. Try it yourself.

I want to BARF!

7th Heaven sucks major ass. I'm flipping through the channels because Monday night television options bite and I find the crappy Camdens and I hit the moment where some of the Camden kids (the eldest son and two eldest daughters) announce they are all expecting twins. Can't this show just die and leave the rest of the world alone?

Okay, I know that isn't fair. Hell, I'm the first to say "turn the channel if you don't like what's playing". So that is what I'm doing. I'm turning the damn channel. And I will try hard to remember that this ridiculously stupid show is on Monday nights so I can take all necessary precautions to avoid running into this horrible waste of programming in the future.

Update: We broke out the Buffy the Vampire Slayer dvds and are partaking of a little vampire goodness.

Haircut

My was-pregnant-now-has-a-baby friend is back to work and thank God as I was in dire need of a haircut! I hit Bellezza Salon after work (okay, I left work early) and got my hair chopped. It was nice to catch up, I've known Bianca since we were kids, and hear all about baby Cooper. I even got to visit a little with Angie, her older sister and someone who I remember as the coolest babysitter ever!

Before

After

Life "Pain in the Butt" Poster

I first saw this idea on the blog I read almost daily called Daddy Daze. It's a Life Poster and Dave, the blogger dad who's dazed, got the idea from another blog and shared it with the rest of us peoples. I knew right away that I wanted to create one of these bad boys but damn if I didn't have the version of Apple's iPhoto that would allow me to do so.

The remedy - I went and bought the latest version of iLife, which also has iWeb (I'm currently working on updating our site) and a bunch of other iStuff* to play with. I rushed home, installed iLife and started the process of selecting the 98 photos needed to create the Life Poster. This is a laborious task and you should drink lots of beer while performing it to ensure the maximum level of fun is reached. Okay, the 98 photos are selected, a Life Poster file is created in iPhoto, I bring up the how-to instructions and set to work configuring the dimensions and creating the .pdf.

Everything appears to be working correctly until it is not. I have added a new custom size poster, efficiently called Life Poster, in Page Setup but that option is unavailable when I select File > Print. I panic, then use logic and reason and Darren to determine that it is because my printer cannot physically handle a job this large and so when my printer is selected, it does not allow the Life Poster option to be selected. Fine. Choosing Any Printer fixes this problem, or so I think. Back to File > Print > Save As PDF. The damn thing is two pages long. I call Apple Support. The guy does a search and leads me to a discussion that is taking place with other people trying to do the same thing and experiencing the same problem. What I find out after I hang up and read through all of the material is that the problem is still unresolved at the end of the discussion thread. I try the other links he offered up as assistance. There is some useful information about adding a virtual printer, which Darr helped me do, but the problem with the .pdf being two pages long remains. I call Apple Support a second time. This guy tells me he doesn't think it's a problem with Apple's product but with my printer. "But I'm using a virtual printer," I tell him. He places me on hold and comes back with the following: "At this time I can direct you to our discussions board." How exactly is this support? I am frustrated and annoyed and say "thank you" in a tone that implies there is no real thanks being meted out and hang up. But the original blog Dave got this idea from makes it all sound so easy and it's Apple so it should be easy. I vow to persevere.

I pack up Marty (my Powerbook G4) and head to the Apple store. They have people there, smart people, people they call Apple experts and I am going to wrangle answers out of one of them if it kills me. I speak with Nathan - he's a Creative (you'll have to go to the store to figure out what that means for yourself). Nathan reminds me of that brainy guy on Criminal Minds but he's slightly older. He quickly becomes just as confused as I am. An hour later, we have transferred my photos to one of their machines because Marty is slightly older and she's taking a gazillion years to complete the simplest of tasks. How do we resolve this issue? We don't. Our solution is to import my photos into Photoshop and complete the build there, which we do. And since I can feel how close we are to the goal of purchasing the Life Poster, I ask if it's just okay to do it there, rather than transfer his work back to Marty and hope she's still spry enough to work. Nathan says "sure" so I sign into my Apple account on their Mac and order my Life Poster from Kodak. This 20"x30" behemoth is expected in 5-7 days. Kudos to my friend Nathan for a job well done. We weren't able to figure out how to get the item to work in iPhoto but we were able to get the item to work. For now, I am appeased. I did, however, write a message to Apple explaining my disgruntled nature and requesting they consider sending me a reimbursement check for the money I spent buying a program that couldn't do what I specifically bought it to do.

*My term, not Apple's.

Pranks For You and Your Friends

This is so totally awesome we've got to try it here in Portland at a local Target store. Contact me if you're interested in participating and have a red polo and we'll set something up. Don't feel like you have to exclude yourself if you're pregnant. Your "condition" will only add to the fun factor of the experience. Click here for details on the prank.

McMakeover

That's right. McDonald's is updating its look with a McMakeover. Here's a preview of what to expect the next time you swing by for some tasty fries. Still employing the signature colors, the exterior of the building has undergone some changes to make it appear less outdated. (The operative word in that sentence is "less".) The interior will offer comfortable, coffeehouse-type seating in a lounge atmosphere - perfect for teenieboppers meeting after school for a quick eat before an evening of illegal beer binging. Mood lighting, plasma t.v.s, couches, Wi-Fi...at McDonald's? Who would have thunk it?

Holy Crap It's May!

I checked out our blog, as I do from time to time, to see if Darr had made any recent posts or if we had received any comments (we love 'em so don't be shy!) and saw that another month had been added to the archives in the sidebar. Another month, folks. This year is almost half over and it still feels like just yesterday we were out snowshoeing with the Dormers. How does a fair portion of the year fly by seemingly without notice? It's crazy. I wonder if this is what the olds (i.e., old people) have always talked about. Am I now old enough to have entered the fast-paced time space continuum? Is this the one the olds have promised would roll by at astonishing speed until I approached death? 'Cause man, that sucks...at least I started my Christmas shopping.

Non-Violent Protest

Ha ha ha, OK, that's totally overstating this little prank.

Five Reasons I Love the Cleaning Lady

1. The house smells clean.
2. The floors are vacuumed.
3. The garbage is taken out.
4. The toilets sparkle.
5. When she cleans, I don't have to.

Not to sound overly Poltergeist on you but "this house is clean".

Italian Immersion

With a mere 132 days until our trip, I thought it was best to break out the Italian language cds I bought about two months ago so I can learn to say things like "hello" and "toilet?". I started listening to them yesterday and already my Italian vocabulary is outstanding! Okay, so I haven't learned "toilet" yet but I can say the following:

La casa è grande. (The house is large.)
and
La campagne è bella. (The countryside is beautiful.)
and
luna (moon)
and
sole (sun)

Because all of these are going to be VERY helpful when we're in Italy for sure. :)

I also am learning the differences in vowels --
"a" is pronounced "ah"
"e" is pronounced "a"
"i" is pronounced "e"
"o" is pronounced "o"
"u" is pronounced, well, um, I don't know how we'd write this sound but it's sort of like "ewww"

I'm on disk one of eight. I'll keep you posted on how immersed I get and the cool new things I learn to say. Until then - ciao!

Puppy Dog Eyes

There's a reason they call them "puppy-dog eyes". Apparently Beauty has figured out my travel schedule, because she was sulking (sulking!) when I was leaving this morning. It just breaks your heart.

I'll see you in a week, kid. Mind Mabel and Ellie and you'll be fine. -pops.