All creatures great and small

When I was a kid, zoos freaked me out because the cages and the animals prompted an immediate flashback to the opening scenes of Dumbo, triggering Grade A meltdown. Ah, another family trip intended to be educational that all goes horribly awry.

The proposed activity for the weekend includes a trip to the SF Zoo. JNC says going to a zoo without kids seems weird. I don't generally combine my leisure activities with children because they tend to lag after the first few miles and they can't hold their liquor worth a damn. However, I'd still like to go to the zoo. I'd like to get the thoughts of my beloved blog readers on this topic.

Questions:

1. Zoos: a fun place that educates the public about wild animals and their habitats or a parade of animals being tortured?
2. Two adults going to the zoo alone. How likely are we to be mistaken for pedophiles or baby snatchers?
3. Is the format of this post too heavily influenced by the format of a bar exam essay or am I just drunk on $5 wine from Cost Plus (Pinot Evil,baby)? Please cite the relevant Rule of California Civil Procedure in your answer.

Quote for the day

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

-Thurgood Marshall

Goals for last weekend

• Get back on bike after a month of ass-growing. CHECK.
• Try vegan carrot cupcake. CHECK
• Revise opinion that vegan cupcakes taste nasty. CHECK and CHECK.
• Drunkenly expound my world views to boss's 15 year-old. CHECK
• On hammock, balance 6-mo old baby dancing on my bladder. CHECK
• Sunburn boobies. CHECK
• Fulfill JFJ's fantasy of riding our cruisers to favorite breakfast spot. CHECK
• Sell chair. CHECK
• Get rid of gnarly bbq. Uhhh... IN PROGRESS

Seriously, take my furniture.

This is the furniture I'm putting on craigslist. I want $25 for the dresser and $40 for the chair, but if you come over to pick them up wearing nothing but a pink shower cap and sing "Feelings" on the balcony, then you can have them both for free.

Shiny new bikes!

The Birthday Otter came early this year and brought me a shiny new pink bike!




With flowers!

Here is The Otter riding JFJ's new bike:

Five friends every woman needs

by Michelle Buford
From Oprah.com

"Friends are the family we choose for ourselves," writer Edna Buchanan once said.

I consider the "family" I've gathered -- with five kinds of pals I count on for completely different things -- among the wisest choices I've made. If you can find even one who embodies any of the characteristics that follow, you can consider yourself fortunate.

The Uplifter: This woman's favorite word: yes. You could tell her you're trading your six-figure income for a career in offtrack betting, and she'd barely pause before yelping "Go for it!" Don't you need someone who looks past the love handles to notice the extraordinarily gorgeous you?

The Travel Buddy: When the hotel in St. Lucia is a bust, one characteristic becomes all-important: flexibility. This agreeable companion need not be the girl you traded pinkie swears with on the playground; it's enough that she's comfortable with quiet (between gabfests) and is a teensy bit mischievous (as in tequila after midnight).

The Truth Teller: Intent is what separates the constructive from the abusive. Once you've established that the hard news is spoken in love (not in jealousy or malice), you'd be smart to seek out this woman's perspective.

The Girl Who Just Wants to Have Fun: One Saturday a pal and I -- and yes, we're both over age 12 -- pored over every glitter lip gloss in a drugstore aisle for an entire 45 minutes. Forget the crisis download (for that, see the Uplifter); this partnership is about spontaneous good times.

The Unlikely Friend: "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive," Anaïs Nin wrote. My friends -- some twice my age, others half, some rich, others homeless, some black like me, others Korean, Mexican, Caucasian -- have added richness to my life that only variety can bring.

In the comments: Which friend are you? Which of your friends fit into these categories?

Because it puts the "boob" in "boob tube," that's why.

I've been living a tv-free lifestyle since I last had a roommate in 2003. Not because I have any objections to tv, I love tv (especially The Girls Next Door) but because I'm too cheap to pay for cable if there's no one to split the bill with. Starting in September, I'll be splitting the cable bill again, and I'm wondering what's on these days.

What shows do you make an effort to see? Do you TiVo? Are there any shows you love SO much that you randomly decide to get tickets to a taping of that show, and the next week you and your roommate take 2 days off to drive 400+ miles to LA, arriving at 2am to find out your hotel is occupied by transients and hookers, find another hotel, get up the next day, go to the taping, and then drive 400+ miles home?

Is it wrong that these make me hungry?

From Something is Fishy in Hollywood. You may need to click on the images to enlarge enough to get a really good idea of how much work went into these - the last ones in particular.

Favorite quotes

"When the men at the counter weren't slipping quarters in her pocket they were bringing her things, souvenirs or friendship cards, once or twice a ring. Mama smiled, joked, slapped ass, and firmly passed back anything that looked like a down payment on something she didn't want to sell."

-Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out Of Carolina

OK, people, do your worst.

I turned comments on, and now all the previous posts have a comments area. Interesting.

What five years and $500M+ will do.

J K Rowling, 2002

J K Rowling, 2007

Yikes

I really need to lay off the cheese: CNN's obesity map.

"...avoid that brass ring like the fucking plague."

For various reasons, the past month has been probably one of the most stressful periods at work ever (yet). That's why I haven't been posting as often. I've been missing workouts and friends, and coming home crabby and stressed out. As the anxiety level has increased, I've become (more) self-absorbed and prone to fatigue and depression. Fortunately, this experience has brought home to me that no matter how much more money lawyers at big firms are making, there is no way I want that life. I can't believe that law schools encourage their students to jump on such a self-destructive path. It's not healthy. Certainly not for me. Even though I enjoy my work, and I like (many of) the people I work with, I just can't imagine regularly working 60+ hour weeks. It's just not how I want to live life. And if that means I continue to be a renter and drive a 10-year old car, well... that actually sounds pretty good.

I'll be so happy when the current insanity level decreases, and my life is no longer the subject of an Onion article.

Make me an offer.

Last Saturday I joined in Nat's yard sale. After carefully spending several days assembling my wares, I made $18 selling a comforter and a couple pairs of shoes. JFJ made a cool $115 selling a Game Boy and an air compressor* that he randomly decided to add to the sale at the last minute. C'est la vie, as the unsuccessful French yard-salers say.

Nat and I got so caught up in the frenzy that we decided to see what we could get for Molly (now 6 months and a hefty 18.5lbs). A couple people wanted to haggle, one woman offered to take her but only if Nat threw in a couple of dishes, but Nat stuck to the price. Many potential buyers were tempted by Molly's sweet demeanor, but declined to make the purchase, citing the high cost of a college education. Eventually Molly's dad found us trying to sell his daughter in the front yard and put a stop to it.

*This is such a guy thing. He pulls up and lugs out of his trunk a huge air compressor. Uh, where did that come from? I have been all over JFJ's apartment and somehow I missed the hidden closet full of power tools. Where was he keeping it? Does he have a secret family somewhere, with a garage full of table saws and wet-dry vacs?

Take my bbq, please!

I'm getting rid of my bbq. It's propane powered, and old. But big! I inherited it from someone who was moving. And then I left it outside, uncovered, for a year. Yours for the low, low price of NOTHING. It may even still work. Seriously, if anyone wants it, let me know and you can have it. Tomorrow it's going on Craigslist for the first axe-wielding rapist to pretend to want it just so they can come to my house, kill me and leave my body in the marshland.

Wishing I had more than poetry to comfort a grieving friend.

Say not in grief that she is no more
but say in thankfulness that she was
A death is not the extinguishing of a light,
but the putting out of the lamp
because the dawn has come.

-Tagore

I am officially a codger.

I cannot figure out how to program my phone for email. This is one step away from not being able to set the time on the VCR. I used to hear "adults" making jokes about that as a kid and think, "There's a button that says 'clock' right on the front of the thing, how fucking dumb do you have to be that you can't figure that out?" And now I know how that feels.

It does not feel good.

Yay for the BBC!

Let's move on from my unsavory fixation on Daniel Radcliffe to something more, erm, savory. Namely, the Posh Nosh: "Leftovers" episode...



"Overall, very pure and well-balanced. Like a nun on a tightrope. This one of those wines you don't want to have sex with."

Need convincing?

Naked Quidditch, anyone?

Saw the latest Harry Potter flick last night. I'm sure been unable to avoid the massive amounts of publicity and probably already know that it's a "darker," more "serious" story that previous Potter tales. But let me tell you something that you're not going to find in every review. The young Mr. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays HP? Uh, he has officially reached "hot." That's right, ladies, it's Potter Puberty and it is delicious. First off, he's clearly been working out because you can really see some nice muscle development in the arms and chest. Also, he's got this brooding thing going on. Like Heathcliff with a wand. Plus, if you know anything about these books, you know he's totally emotionally damaged. Sign me up!

Never thought I would perv out on Harry Potter, but I guess this is what my thirties is going to be like. Of course, he's not actually 18 yet, so before you book a ticket to London, please take note:



Inspired by the blog of the brilliant Michelle Collins, who found Potter more attractive a few years before I began to get comfortable with the idea.

Why I'm going to bed now.

Swam a mile for the first time today. Fo'shizzle.

Good for wiling away some lazy daytime hours.

Overheard in the Office

Sobriety is not a "repercussion."

JNC insists that she "had" to go to Vegas in May.

"Or what?"I asked her, "You'll lose your job? Get arrested? Is there a court order that you go?"

"Mmmm...no...." JNC mused, "There would be...repercussions."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Last night I made the huge mistake of watching Dateline: To Catch a Predator. Gross, gross, gross. In case you haven't seen it, this is what happens: a bunch of sick perverts had explicit online chat with a girl they thought was thirteen. They went over to what they thought was her house where she would be alone. Then Dateline comes out and chats with them and then they get arrested. They broadcast parts of their post-arrest interview with police. One guy actually had the nerve to trot out his veteran status in an attempt to curry favor. Dude, you might get out of a traffic ticket with that. But solicitation of a 13 year-old?

You can only watch this for so long before you start to hate men. I asked JFJ to defend his gender.

"Oh sweetie," he explained, "those aren't men. Those are gorillas who learned how to talk."

This morning the office parking lot had hay and horse manure strewn about. Why were there horses in the parking lot? We may never know.

Just when you thought the Internet had run out of fun...

When I'm not ranting about the Supreme Court, I'm creating my own Simpsons avatar.