Would you like some fudge with that?

Back from North Carolina, God's sauna and fudgery. Here's what I have to say, initially: damn, it's hot there. And they eat a lot of fudge. There was a fudge shop in every damn shopping center we saw. JFJ's bag and the surfboards are still in the Atlanta airport because apparently 2 1/2 hours isn't enough time for Delta to transfer them between planes.

Scrumpy made sure to call me this morning and demand that I meet her for lunch and was offended that I was going to work and asked me in a vaguely threatening voice when we were going to get together. Did she ask how my vacation was? Ah, no? Did she think about the fact that we have a mountain of laundry and no groceries so maybe it wasn't optimal socializing time for me? Ah, no.

I will be spending all foreseeable holidays in Colorado with JFJ's family. Because I like them, and they seem to like me, which is more than I can say about the relatives I have in this country.

More about the vacation soon, I just had to get the Scrumpy rant off my chest.

Scammers: Beware of Otters!

In a former life, before me met me and discovered the joys of living la vida Redhead, JFJ got a Rolex as a gift from his former boss. It's spent most of its life in its original box, only to be brought out for the occassional wedding or job interview. JFJ is not really a Rolex guy and decided he would post ad ad for the watch on craigslist to see if he got any takers. He did, and collected a tidy sum from a local man who is a watch collector. He also got a number of responses that were clearly people trying to scam him. The most blatant example was this one:

David Mika wrote:

Hello thanks for your reply,
I will be needing this item for my inlaw
for his wedding in the ending of June,therefore i
will be needing it as soon as possible.he is located
in NC and I am ok with the item and will like to
make an immediate payment,I will instruct my
financial instituton in the United States to send
you a check as soon as you receive your funds.you
will deduct your $2000 and also deduct $100 to
shipped the item to my son.If you are okay with this
let me know so that I will contacted my financial
institution and they will send you a check of $4,000
and you remove the sum of $2,100.and send the rest
funds to the other client because the payment is my
retainer fee and i will instruct them to send the
check on your name so as to cash it and deduct your
funds and send the rest funds to client and shipped
the item also,and i would want you to send me your
Full Name, Contact Address and your Mobile Phone
Number so my financial institution can send the
check to you. Thanking you for your maximum
cooperaton. Would await your urgent correspondence.
Sincerely

JFJ's enormous reserves of patience were taxed by wading through all the drama, and he vented his frustrations on the poor scammer:

To: David Mika

wow, that's perfect! I'm going to be in NC for the next 2 weeks! This is going to be sooo easy now! What are the chances it could work out this well??
Why don't you give me the address of the wedding and the bride's full name and I will personally deliver the watch? Why burden your "financial institution" with this transaction when we can meet and party at the wedding? I love weddings! I'm so excited now, thank you for thinking of me. There's just one small issue, however. You see, my best friend loves a good wedding too but he is extremely ill right now. He is absolutely heartbroken that he may not live to see your son get married. I'm worried that he won't survive the trip, and I fear that I will be returning with his body in a box. Recently however, I discovered that there is a new experimental drug for people with a condition such as his. Rumor has it that this miracle cure would help people like him function almost normally in a public setting. Though some side effects can include diarrhea and vomiting, barking like a dog, and longer erections - I think you would agree that this is a small price to pay for having a semi-normal life.
So this is what I've wanted to tell you for so long. And now that I've got that off my chest and breathed a sigh of relief; I need to ask you for your help. Help me. Help my friend. Help us. Together, let's make his life brighter. Let's usher in a new beginning for him, and give him the gift of this beautiful world and give him back his right to exist in it.
Do the right thing, David. Do the only thing, David. Do what's in your heart.
Do reply with a Mastercard or Visa number for the amount of $4100 and include your full name as it appears on card. Don't forget the expiration date and the 3 digit code on the back.
Thank you, David. You are an amazing person. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

I love you.

Vacation, all I've ever wanted! Vacation, had to get away!

Work has finally calmed down to the point where I don't shun a computer in my downtime. JFJ and I leave for the Outer Banks next Thursday and although the trip has become a little more crowded than I originally anticipated, I'm really looking forward to it. I've never been to North Carolina, so it will be fun to see a new part of the country, and to meet JFJ's sister, her partner and his nephew, none of whom I've ever met before. We are also planning long bike rides and runs to keep us from getting too much "vacation gut." The last couple months has been the busiest and most emotionally challenging time since I've had this job, and I desperately need to relax.

Not like you wanted to do much work today anyway.

Lyrics of great rock and rolls songs... but all the words are in alphabetical order. Can you identify the song? It's good, clean fun right here.

Theo Jansen's kinetic sculptures

For your vacation planning purposes

You can hug pandas in China.

Been busy at work this week!

That orange jumpsuit does nothing for your skin tone.

One of my fave shows, What Not To Wear aka WNTW is casting in the SF Bay Area.

One of the categories that they are looking for is women who need a makeover because they “just got out of prison.” If anyone sees a WNTW episode where Stacy and Clinton try to put kitten heels and a fitted jacket onto someone who’s just been sprung from the pen, please let me know when it’s on. This is something not to be missed.

What's a fibula?

Otter flipper

Well, the Otter done gone and broked his leg. He was snowboarding at Dodge Ridge a couple weeks ago and took a spill.* He was landing a jump and the front of his snowboard wedged into a drift and stayed put as he fell forward. Ankle sprained, fibula broked. He hobbled around on it until Monday morning when he went to see the doctor. I am going to see if I can scan the x-rays because when you look at them you wonder HOW he managed to walk around. That bone is just snapped.

Good news: no cast, no surgery, no time off work

Bad news: crutches and a leg brace for six to eight weeks.

He's being a super trooper about the whole thing, but it's really hard for him not to be working out. Any suggestions for good movies or board games would be very welcome!

*It was his second big spill of the day, although he thinks I don't know about the first one. Advice for Otters: The Redhead ALWAYS knows.

There's so much to say about this, I don't even know where to begin.

As you know if you've ever used Match.com, you can express your interest in someone by sending a "wink" to their profile. My friend got a "wink" from this guy and sent one back. Here is what she got in response:

Hey,

Thanks for winking back. I read your profile again. You seem like a good person.

Some initial questions, I always ask, just to keep the worst ones away. Feel free to answer the questions you wish, and however you wish. This is the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm sure you understand.

(1) How many have you had sex with? How many guys have you broken up with, after having sex?

(2) Have you done drugs or had alcohol-related problems?

(3) Have you ever broken the law, or been involved in a legal dispute?

(4) Have you ever had financial problems? Including credit card dept?

(5) How is your family situation? Are your parents married or divorced?

(6) Any other issues with credability and character?

Best,
[NAME REDACTED, ALTHOUGH I REALLY WANTED TO INCLUDE HIS NAME, EMAIL AND PHOTO]

News from CLA, while home with sick children, ages 2 and five:

Having a fever apparently does not:

1) Affect one's desire or ability to throttle one's sibling repeatedly

or

2)Diminish one's capacity to pee on the carpet...proudly declaring, "I poo poo!"

Stuff White People Like

Thanks to Brie for bringing
this site to my attention. It's the funniest thing ever, and if you don't agree then fuck you and the Prius you rode in on.

Oprah, can I have $20k?

I hate to laugh at the misfortunes of others, but sometimes the misfortunes of others are really funny.

Some days...

JFJ and I hit the wine pretty hard last night and it was tough when the alarm went off at 5:30am. Today was a brick day: one hour of spin spin then treadmill and I felt every minute of it. So when JFJ sent me the quote below this morning, I knew we were on the same wavelength:

"I think there's only one sensible place for a person to be at 5:30 in the morning. That's in bed. And what am I doing? I'm out running. And I completely hate this."

Derek Clayton, Australian marathoner, first to break 2:09

“Valentine”
By Frank Bidart

How those now dead used the word love bewildered
and disgusted the boy who resolved he

would not reassure the world he felt
love until he understood love

Resolve that too soon crumbled when he found
within his chest

something intolerable for which the word
because no other word was right

must be love
must be love

Love craved and despised and necessary
the Great American Songbook said explained our fate

my bereft grandmother bereft
father bereft mother their wild regret

How those now dead used love to explain
wild regret

And the Bob Dole Grumpy Old Man Award goes to: Fred Thompson!

Fred Thompson “Leader of the Pack”

Thompson has selected a song about “Betty” and “Jimmy” who meet at the candy store and have a brief romance. Betty’s dad tells her she can’t see Jimmy anymore, and after she breaks up with him, tearful Jimmy speeds off into the night and dies in an accident, with the not-so-subtle implication that he killed himself rather than live without Betty’s love. Ahem. What in the WORLD does this have to do with anything? At least most of the campaign songs have a positive message about the country or a theme about change. Fred’s song is about… Fred. And how he is the, uh, leader of the pack…?

Let’s not forget how the song ends:

“The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone
The leader of the pack - now he's gone.”

Not exactly a positive message, is it? If only Fred was gone from the campaign.


Also, I think it’s interesting that he chose a song that was released a full two years before his wife was even born. Fred married Jeri (with an “i”!) in 2002 when she was 35 and he was 59. When asked by the Associated Press in 2007 what his favorite possession was, he said ”trophy wife.” An unfair message for Fred to send when he defends her qualifications as a potential first lady from the other side of his mouth.

Wikipedia says that Obama’s campaign song is “Better Way” by Ben Harper and not “Move On Up.” Hmmm... must go back and check my ”sources”.

desilusionado

Last night I had a really vivid dream that I had enrolled in a one-month study abroad program in Spain. Sounds great, except it was accompanied by the panicked realization that I was leaving the next day and had done nothing to prepare. I didn’t have a flight booked, I hadn’t arranged to get the time off work, I hadn't packed, I hadn’t even told my boyfriend. In the dream I was trying to be as calm as possible and just methodically figure out how I was going to get organized and get to Spain in the next 24 hours. My friend Oodles told me she had family in Spain, and I could stay with them for a few days until I found a place to live. This was the only part of the dream that was actually realistic, because Oodles does have family all over the world and often offers them up as a kind of family bed and breakfast. But since it was an anxiety dream, nothing else was going right. I found a flight, but couldn't find the airport on a map. There was this mysterious person who was supposed to be helping me but kept pointing to the map and insisting that Spain was where Germany is. Just as I was beginning to doubt my own sanity. I woke up and felt immediate relief that I didn’t have this complicated mess to figure out. Then I was immediately bummed, because I had to go to work, and not Spain.

"And now I'm proud to present the next President of the United States..."

I’ll leave the meaningful analysis of the issues to the educated pundits and tackle something a little more in the spirit of this blog: campaign songs. I'll tell you what I would have picked as the campaign song. Also, there will be complaining about Canadians. I'd love to hear your ideas on campaign songs, too, so bring it on in the comments. Today, we do the Democrats.

Hillary Clinton: “Blue Sky” by Big Head Todd and The Monsters

Clinton’s theme song used to be “You and I” by Celine Dion but it was replaced after Hillary’s campaign belatedly realized the song was written as the theme for Air Canada. Far more troubling to me is the fact that Celine Dion is a French-speaking Canadian, and as everyone knows, they hate two things: Freedom and America. So it’s good that the theme song has been replaced. It doesn’t really matter what she replaced it with, so long as it’s not the theme of a foreign airline or written by a freedom-hating Canadian.

My suggestion:
Clinton campaign events often play “Suddenly I See” by KT Tunstall which I think would have been a great theme song for Hillary’s campaign except it has the word “hell” in it and that’s probably still considered profanity in some parts of the fucking country.

Barak Obama: “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield

When I first looked up Obama's campaign song I thought for one horrible moment that Obama had chosen “Movin’ On Up” the theme from the tv show "The Jeffersons". I kid you not. I had a full minute of trying to imagine Senator Obama walking onto the stage, waving to the crowd, with "The Jeffersons" theme song playing in the background. It was like Ron Paul’s wet dream. Then I saw the name of the artist and realized I was thinking of something totally different. Still, it scares me that when I see the title of the song the first thing I think of is The Jeffersons. Apart from the fact that people of my generation may have that momentary incorrect association (and there’s really only about a dozen people in my generation voting anyway) this actually seems like a good choice. It has a positive message and there's an association with the civil rights movement. There's always the danger that people will associate a song from that era with smelly hippies having sit-ins. And it doesn't have enough of a rock n roll to it that makes you want to jump up to your feet when he walks on stage like when Clinton the First used "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac. Now there's a song the Teamsters can dance to.

My suggestion:
Obama would probably get flack if he didn’t choose an African-American artist. Ok, fine, but since Obama is the youngest candidate* my choice would be something more modern. For example, Kanye West’s “I Wonder” which contains the line, “Do you even remember what the issue is?” This seems appropriate given Obama’s long, imprecise answers. When he’s done answering a question and you feel like, wow, that was so inspirational… and yet I have no idea what he just said.

John Edwards
“This Is Our Country” by John “formerly the Cougar” Mellencamp.

This is actually a pretty good choice. It’s upbeat, the lyrics are positive and it hasn’t been used as a theme by a Canadian airline.

My Suggestion: “When It’s Over” Sugar Ray
It’s endearing that Edwards is still out there running for President (as far as I can tell that’s all he’s been doing since the last election) but at this point his chances of getting ahead of Hil-Barak are minimal. Which is fine with me, because even though I like his politics he’s a trial lawyer and I trust those guys about as far as I can throw them in their money-lined suits.

Edwards has been paying Obama a lot of compliments lately, which makes me wonder if he’s hoping to be tapped as a running mate. Maybe he can get one of the moderators to pass Obama a note at the next debate - I guess the kids don’t really do that anymore, a text message is probably more appropriate (“U R cool. Want 2 B running m8s?”).

Tomorrow: Republican theme songs!

*total conjecture. He looks like the youngest, he’s certainly the least experienced, but I just can’t be bothered to double-check.

Disgruntled?

This morning I took my car in for an oil change. Fascinating, I agree. I went over to have a cup of coffee and read the paper at the Java Junction while the car was being worked on. There is a plethora of reading materials, the local paper, separate stacks of the two weeklies, a pile of schedules from the local community college, the real estate rags… you know the drill. As I sit there enjoying my java a guy rushes through the door and over to the stacks of papers lines against the window. He scoops up the entire stack of the community college schedules and, muttering the name of the college under his breath, rushes outside. I strained to look where he had gone but didn’t want to attract any attention should he decide to run back in for the Pennysaver.

Rahabilitation???

I apologize for the 24-hour spelling error in the post below, I've been trying to fix it but have been encountering issues with Blogger. It made me queasy every time I looked at it. Also, I love Brie's comment about scare tactics with kids. My guess is that they were telling them that so they wouldn't try to pester otters in the wild. But do many people get that close to otters in the wild?

Finally, none of my bones were broken on the snow trip. I just found a photo of an x-ray and thought it would be funny. Ha. Ha.

Insanely cute otter video that will make your brain actually hurt

Video of orphaned sea otter pup's rehabilitation. HOW DO I GET A JOB SNUGGLING BABY OTTERS???



More info about sweet little snuggly baby otter:

Abby, a California sea otter pup, is cared for by Mark Bressler, senior animal care specialist at SeaWorld San Diego. The Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center found the otter stranded and near comatose on Jalama Beach, north of Santa Barbara, Calif., on July 21 and brought it to SeaWorld for rehabilitation. The female pup, which was estimated to be less than a week old when rescued, is being bottle-fed around the clock at SeaWorld and weighs approximately four pounds.
When the young otter was rescued, she was dehydrated, hypoglycemic, having difficulty maintaining her body temperature and weighed about three pounds (sea otter pups weigh between three and five pounds at birth). At first, the otter was too weak to nurse and had to be tube-fed. Animal care specialists eventually were able to get her to drink from a bottle. The otter pup is showing signs of progress, including nursing from a bottle regularly, and maintaining a normal body temperature of 99 to 100 degrees F.
The California sea otter is listed as a threatened species by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Threats include oil spills, entanglement in fishing nets and disease. The three California sea otters now on display at SeaWorld's Rocky Point Preserve were originally stranded and rescued as part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sea Otter Research and Conservation (SORAC) Program.
Since 1965, SeaWorld San Diego has rescued thousands of animals and has treated as many as 475 marine mammals in one year. SeaWorld has raised three other orphaned otters in the last 15 years, in cooperation with Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Next time I say I'm not a natural snowboarder, maybe you'll listen.

Well, after a two month absence from the blogosphere I thought it was time to explain my absence. In my last post, I explained that JFJ and I were off to the snow and I was a little nervous about trying snowboarding for the first time. And now you see why.