Call me Cordelia

This is Cordelia.


She is wearing pantaloons.

I cannot prove to you that she is wearing pantaloons for the following two reasons:
(1) It would be rude!
(2) If I showed you the pantaloons, you would catch on to Cordelia’s terrible secret; a secret I made solemn vows to Cordelia, my bosom friend, never to tell; a secret wild horses could not drag from me!

Eh, what the hell.

Cordelia is very badly crafted. Cordelia is a textbook example of shoddy workmanship. Cordelia is of poor quality.

She does have a rose-leaf complexion, starry violet eyes, and hair black as a raven’s wing, but that’s only because her little china face came from a factory. The rest of her was created entirely by yours truly, the most gammy-handed seamstress that ever had to google the term "dart" just to be sure. You might think creating something of such dazzling complexity would have made me heady with power, but in fact I feel mortality more keenly than ever because I know how horribly close Cordelia’s head is to falling right off onto the ground and rolling around much in the grotesque manner of Marie Antoinette's, post-guillotining. Cordelia: a symbol of death and the revolution! . . . in pantaloons.

No, she's pretty cute. But her infirmities are entertaining enough that I am unable to resist cataloguing them below. Apologies to Cordelia. Even the beautiful must suffer indignities. Just ask Marie.

Indignity number one: being packaged like this.


She didn’t have a chance, especially after I declined my grandmother’s kind offer to assemble her for me. I’m sorry, Cordelia: she would have made a delicate and proportional beauty out of you, and I butchered you like the Lennie of the sewing world. Now you will have all these sartorial complexes that your Shaker community will not know how to deal with except by reading you endless exerpts from Job. It's hard out there for a Shaker doll with a disreputable tailor.

Moving on: the torso.


If a real woman had Cordelia’s torso, she’d have to forego the use of several internal organs because they would not fit. On the other hand, if she were a real woman, the little paper with the quote on it that I sewed into her would be a serious and costly medical problem, so the issue of realism is something of a moot point. The really embarrassing thing for Cordelia, as a doll is this: she is not properly stuffed! There is extra filler between her torso and her bodice. Loose filler, so she would not look emaciated after I understuffed her torso. She’s afraid to play games in case it pops out in front of her competently-manufactured peers.

Thirdly, her limbs.


When I sewed them on they turned out crooked and are all different lengths, probably because I was laughing the entire time. Appendages!

Fourthly, the limb-torso combination. You may think this is kind of amusing:


I thought this was hysterical:


Then I sewed the arms on, and the chance for Cordelia to have any self respect pretty much ceased here. This is one demon zombie that will never bother Ash again.


At this point, it’s worth mentioning that Cordelia has freakishly muscular calves, so much so that I very nearly couldn’t turn the muslin back over them after gluing it on at the knees. This leads me to believe that, during her ten- or twelve-year stint lying unassembled in a small box in my closet, Cordelia managed to take up what else but Irish dancing.

Ironically, now that all of her parts are sewn together, I doubt she could even manage a round of golf (which is the opposite of any sport that requires being awake much less expending energy). And anyway if she moved enough even to putt a ball three inches, white stuff would bust out of her, so lethargy is really an asset supporting her new, assembled lifestyle.

Let us now turn to the dress. The bodice in a word: hell.


I had to make it twice because it did not occur to me the first time that I shouldn’t sew it closed because Cordelia’s cranium was three times the size of the neck of the dress. Oops. That mistake cost a solid ninety minutes.

The pleats in a (few choice) word(s): hell plus having your fingers repeatedly burned by the steam from a big clumsy iron of DEATH. No, MOLTEN DEATH.


The directions for the skirt specifically warn against cutting the fabric before reading the directions thoroughly. But you have to read the directions thoroughly to know that. Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men ARE THROTTLED BY THE LENNIE OF THE SEWING WORLD. I cut the skirt in half. Then had to sew it back together; then realized I had sewn the wrong ends together and the pleats were off; then ended up having to sew it onto the bodice backwards. Cornelia, still in pieces at that point, wept from her starry violet eyes.

The bonnet I didn’t even try. Having managed a pair of very fetching pantaloons with elastic, a five-part bodice with puffed sleeves (twice), a pleated skirt (ow), and a little ribbon-lined capelet that was so tiny and had so small a seam allowance at the neck that I was forced to repeatedly stab myself in the fingers to complete it – I felt that the bonnet, the darling little bonnet, was really quite beyond me. Victorious over pleats only to be undone by headgear. Actually, I just wanted to be done.

And I was.

But before I reveal the full and finished project in all her flawed, disproportionate, ill-stuffed, badly-ironed, unevenly-sewn, loose-seamed, bobble-headed glory, I would like to thank my loyal dog for her hard work.


Also for her bravery in saving me from the scary, scary thunder. Couldn’t have done it without you, Abbie.


And now, the moment you have all (mainly Ivan) been waiting for: the wearer of the infamous pantaloons: Cordelia!



She is the reason I am now hunchbacked, blind, and arthritic, but I've forgiven her because she looks awfully sweet sitting on a shelf, and also because, before this, I had never had legitimate reason to use the word "pantaloons" even once, and the lack, let me tell you, was sorely apparent.

Pantaloons of Infamy; or, There's a Hole in my Bucket . . .

Speaking of haberdashery. Over the weekend I accidentally let it slip to Ivan that I was working on a project that involved pantaloons. I mentioned the pantaloons to her because I never get tired of saying “pantaloons”, as you will see. It makes me think of doubloons which makes me think of pirates which makes me think of pirates in pantaloons which makes me laugh.

Little did I know that the my hilarity concerning the pantaloons would cause Ivan’s brain to melt. I guess technically it was my fault because I wouldn’t say what the mysterious pantaloons were for. Pantaloons . . . are like birthday wishes. If you explain, they won’t come true.

Honest!

And yet word of the pantaloons's existence got out. I didn't know at that stage what I was getting myself into; the mildness of Ivan's initial interest did not forebode what was to come.

Me: Nothing like sewing pantaloons on a Saturday afternoon.
Ivan: For real?

Ivan then developed, for an unfathomable reason, a sudden paranoid fear of the pantaloons:

Me: I’ve never needed a thimble before.
Ivan: OK, SIMON, I'M STARTING TO THINK YOU'RE REALLY SEWING PANTALOONS. What's with that?

This quickly progressed to stalking:

Ivan: You must tell me what you're sewing. I almost called your house to ask your mother.

And from here Ivan went directly into harassment via e-mail. These were sent in the space of a single afternoon. They reach sort of a peak of derangement in the third e-mail, and then in numbers four and five you can see that poor Ivan snaps and her spirit is crushed under the weight of unexplained pantaloons. It's a kind of tragicomedy, really. (Sorry, Ivan.)

E-mail #1: YOU HAD BETTER POST SOON. I AM STILL CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN THIS (obviously) ILLEGAL PANTALOON PRODUCTION.

E-mail #2: SSSiiiiiiiiiMMMOOONNN. the suspense. it's killing me. seriously. you'll be sorry when i'm dead.

E-mail #3: ARRRGGHGGGWEEgtejt6w45345r
i need to know WHY and HOW and FOR WHAT IN THE NAME OF BOB AND HAMAL you are sewing pantaloons for.

E-mail #4: google ads wants me to tell you "$3000/week to crochet!"

E-mail #5: are you done with the thing, about the things yet?

Yes, Ivan, I’m done. And to tide you over until I finish the real post, here are the infamous pantaloons that have been tormenting you so. Didn’t I say they were cute?

Happy Easter!

My mother sends me gifts on fake holidays. Valentine's Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving... Her season themed packages make the 12 months of summer (seriously people, 75 and sunny gets old) pass a little easier. For example: October. I close the blinds, turn up the AC, set my gifts of indian corn and mini pumpkins on the table, light my "autumn spice" candle and imagine the leaves falling... then I pack up and go to the beach.

So, thank Bob for Mom, but she doesn't like to send the same thing year after year. For example, Valentine's Day 2006. I got the obligatory chocolates and a card and a rice crispie treat coated in white chocolate and mini hearts, stuck on a popsicle stick. It actually came labeled "Heart Coated Crispie Rice Pop". Let me tell you, I thought good and hard before eating that one.

And today my Easter package arrived. So excited! A Spring themed holiday. Who knows, maybe she sent some crocuses! Or dirty snow! Maybe some damp earth mixed with easter eggs! Mother did not disappoint.
Easter themed Jelly Belly's ,
A pretty Daisy lolly-pop,


and...

wait for it ... wait for it ...


A CHOCOLATE CELLULAR PHONE!!!


because NOTHING says "Jesus has Risen" like an edible mobile. Sadly, mother forgot about the east coast/west coast temperature disparity. It hit 80 here yesterday and leaving chocolate on my front stoop for two hours was the equivalent of leaving a VHS tape in your car in the middle of august. Tragedy. I tried to pawn it off on my coworkers, but they all made lame comments like "I don't need to make a call", "what does a melty phone have to do with Easter", and "I'm fasting for passover... put me on hold 'til noon then I will try it."

All in all, it was a fantastic Easter present. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go draw the blinds, dye some eggs and pretend it's raining.

Happy Easter!

Wow, Simon and Ivan have some unique aesthetic preferences . . .

Clearly we are undergoing a change. Thus, the page looks absolutely awful. Sorry about that. Try to avert your eyes.

Clarification

Ivan's Dog:


Shetland Pony:


Simon's Beast:


just so we're clear.

Abbie: The Decagenarian Edition

Today my puppy turned ten years old. For a present, I gave her some of my leftover chicken from dinner. It took a lot of forethought and careful planning. Happy birthday, Abbie! Just kidding. I gave her ice cream, too. That didn't take careful planning either, but it is much more rare.

Below you will find several pictures of my Abbie-gabbie when she was just a wee fuzzball with enormous paws and very, very sharp teeth. I know they were sharp because they nipped my behind on a number of occasions. Abbie and I had something of a power struggle in the early years, back when she was a demonic terror, but I won because I am bigger and I bite too. Ha!

Demon Hound
Devourer of Ankle Flesh
Convicted Behind-Nipper
She Wants to Gnaw Your Leg Off
Since the Reign of Terror depicted in these hair-raising photographs, Abbie has grown into a delightful and well-adjusted family pet who says please, thank you, and excuse me, and can quote T.S. Eliot at length. She has also grown into what Ivan has on more than one occasion described as a "Shetland pony". This has gone on for some time, even after we got that thyroid problem fixed, and I would like to settle the question once and for all.

This is Abbie:

This is a Shetland pony:

If you don't know this is not a Shetland pony, we are no longer speaking.

Point is: Abbie is obviously Abbie, not a Shetland pony! Also, my mother does not bind her feet! But Ivan's questionable sense of proportion is another matter altogether, and the subject for another, possibly lengthy, blog. It is now time to close. With more pictures of Abbie. Because I have a lot, and damn if you aren't going to be eventually forced to see them ALL.

Abbie: Beach Party Edition
Abbie: Splish Splash Edition
Abbie: Genius Edition
Abbie: Inexpressibly Cute Edition

snail stomper, squirrel hurler

I made the move to Burbank last weekend, and let me strongly recommend never moving your entire life to the Valley in a Honda Civic. The damn thing won’t accelerate when I have too many pairs of shoes in the back let alone 900lbs of books, clothes, and furniture. It also didn’t help that it was POURING the entire time I was dragging IKEA furniture piece by piece from my second story apartment. Not only was everything waterlogged, but the garden snails decided to congregate on the sidewalk for their annual “mill around on the sidewalk and tempt fate” party. As a result, moving sounded like this “ahhh, this furniture is huge and heavy, but I can mana ::CRUNCH:: ge. ::CRUNCH:: ::CRACK:: ::CRUNCH::” It was nauseating.

But I made it, and while unpacking I found several rented DVD’s I thought I lost. Blockbuster charged me a small fortune for these movies and for some reason the words "you're destitute" flashed through my brain in such a persistent pattern when I found them that I decided to drive to my old neighborhood for a credit on my account.

So I’m driving back to West LA and it’s at this point, while stopped at a crosswalk, that a man walks across the street with a cup of coffee in one hand, his morning paper in the other, and a dead squirrel poking out from between the pages. This raised several questions: Why does this man have a squirrel hanging from his morning paper?” Will he eat the squirrel for breakfast? What kind of breakfast can you make with squirrel? Does it taste good in oatmeal? What if you use a lot of brown sugar? Does he do this every morning? Has he been fattening it up? Did he wait till Sunday so he could bludgeon it with a bigger paper?

Squirrels are rather popular these days. My internet-savvy co-workers showed me a video clip called “squirrel hurler”. In the clip, unseen nature lovers-- I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate they're bored male teenagers-- build a small catapult at the edge of a lake and load it with food. The unseen nature lovers wait for a squirrel to wander onto the platform and release the catapult. I’ve overheard several people watching the clip, and the first thing out of their mouth as the squirrel hurtles toward the water is always “can squirrels swim?” There’s a tense moment after the splash and everyone breathes a sigh of relief when it pops up, dog paddles (squirrel paddles?) to the edge of the pond and sprints into the woods.

Maybe the man crossing the street hunted and killed his Sunday paper squirrel in the hopes of testing his own animal hurler... an ocean version perhaps?

And then the light changed, as lights in intersections often do, forcing me to leave the man, the squirrel and all my unanswered questions at the corner of Barrington and National. I think I'll miss West LA.

Suzy Stockmarket

I am absolutely a person who would hide their savings in their mattress, if that was a viable option and also if it wouldn't completely ruin the mattress. Matresses are expensive. You'd have to use your savings to get another, and then you'd have two mattresses and no money. Stupid. Thus, I reluctantly keep my money in a bank, the bank pays me 0.000000296% interest on my savings account, and that is fine. You don't even have to pay taxes on income equalling less than a billionth of a penny.

Well, I am surprised to learn that some brave souls go even further than entrusting their tuppence to the bank. It turns out that when you have a job you're supposed to like seriously save up or something? For retirement? And like, you are supposed to "grow" this money so that you can retire at the age of forty like the people on the cover of the pamphlet I was given on the subject. People who are white-water rafting, by the way, without lifejackets. Low risk-aversity crowd, apparently. I guess that's how they got rich so early. Or they sold their souls to the devil. Or Jack Abramoff. Or is there a difference. (Oooh, as they say, snap.)

I was told by my mother that starting a retirement plan now would be Wise, so when Eloise offered me one, I said, "Okay."

Foolish mortal.

Today I got a phone call from the company's financial man. We'll call him Peter, because that was his name. And here is how our conversation went:

Peter: The government encourages us to save so that we can pay for our retirement.
Me: Right.
Peter: Now, people don't usually wake up one morning all excited about saving for retirement--
Me: Oh, I don't know about that.
Peter: --well, most of my clients are not all excited about saving for retirement, but the closer you get, the more important it is to have enough to live on. How old are you, Simon?
Me: Twenty-three.

Pause.

Peter: So you'll have some time.
Me: Yes.

This is how I came to be sitting at the dining room table with my father tonight, signing away enough of my paycheck to theoretically be able to buy myself a pre-owned pair of orthopedic shoes in 2055. I say theoretically because I firmly believe that if I invested my entire paycheck, even with 8% growth over 50 years, I would eventually be forced to eat the orthopedic shoes because . . . I am very poor. Evidence:

Me: What tax bracket am I in?
My father: What does your tax return say?
Me: Zero.
My father: Well, you didn't really make anything last year. I guess you'll be in the lowest tax bracket this year, but I don't know what that is.
Me: What if I just put a sad face after that question?
My father: That would be appropriate.

I hope the orthopedic shoes come in grape.

And as if I was not concerned enough, my father then told me about how some people instruct their financial advisors never to invest in anything having to do with tobacco or oil or Ruby Tuesday's or whatever area in which your moral outrage happens to fall, and suddenly I had this strange feeling. I thought to myself, this might be it. You might never be able to be a viable candidate for public office because you are starting a paper trail at this very moment. Eventually someone will discover you signed off on investing in, say, ZQ Babykilling, Inc., totally by accident because you do not know what the hell you are doing. Someday you'll have to give a press conference at which you will be forced to utter the financial equivalent of "But I didn't inhale" or "But I don't remember anything about being in that exclusive club at Yarvard" or "But that DWI arrest made room for Jesus Christ in my heart."

Let's stop for an update. So far, this savings plan has me eating used, though grape-flavored, orthopedic shoes and barring me from the political career I always dreamed of (on Wednesday nights at 9/8 central only, but still).

Then, this savings plan, much like Financial Man Peter, who actually made a joke about absconding to Mexico with my money, decided to terrify me further by requiring me to fill out a questionnaire detailing precisely how averse to risk I am. I think I can tell you I am PRETTY AVERSE TO RISK. At the very least, I do wear a life jacket. Around town. No, just kidding. Only in the car. Anyway, the questionnaire repeatedly asks, in eight different ways, "If there was a small chance you might get a mind-bogglingly enormous return on a $10,000 investment, and a much larger chance that you wouldn't, and would in fact go completely broke . . . would you invest?"

No. It will be such a pain to dig that $10,000 out from inside my mattress.

Nothing sums up Los Angeles more accurately than "Annie Hall" when Diane Keaton says "It's so clean out here" and Woody Allen replies "That's because they don't throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows". You have no idea how many trash ideas are thrown around out here. And the people making these shows LOVE to advertise. When friends visit they often remark on the number of film and television related billboards we have. Each studio stakes out several blocks and advertises the hell out of their productions. As I was pumping gas this morning I realized how much I was going to miss the FOX collection of billboards, including, but not limited to the rather savage American Idol one posted above my favorite gas station.
It's best to go on a Thursday morning after they vote someone off. You can actually see men scale the billboard and paint over some poor kid's face, officially ending of their 15 minutes of fame. It's brutal. It's entertaining. It's reality television at it's finest.

the internet knows all.

In college, we would consume large amounts of alcohol and attempt projects that involved skills like "coordination", "creativity" and "the ability to see straight". Why we threw back three bottles of wine and decided to finger paint my room, I will never know. It's not an endeavor I will attempt again, but college is good for lessons like that. On another occasion we decided to bake... The night is rather hazy, but I do remember the cookies catching fire and screaming "EVERYONE GRAB A UTENSIL" and people trying to fling flaming snickerdoodles into the sink. We were hungry and decided to eat the cookies anyway. Upon our initial taste test we realized we had rolled the dough in salt and paprika instead of cinnamon and sugar.

What triggered this tragic memory? Well, lately everything I eat has been tasting very, very salty. Things that have no business tasting salty... cookies for example, cookies I haven't had a hand in baking. I googled my symptom, "everything tastes salty" and learned I'm either dehydrated or I have brain lesions. I'm trying to decide if this diagnosis is better or worse than the plague.

I think I'll go drink some water.

Observations, Flights of Fancy, Blasphemy, and Vulgarities, Not Necessarily in that Order

Flight of Fancy
Item, there is a gas pump one town over that has a flawed LCD display and instead of **authorizing** my debit card, it blandly notifies me that it is ** uthorizing** it. Whenever I see this I fully expect the card to seduce Igraine of Cornwall, kill her husband, and spawn that poor, tortured creature of misery, King Arthur, and I kind of want to mumble to the gas pump, "Please stop Utherizing my card. I do not need an Uther, unless he's going to stand quietly beside me all the time and hold my money." Then I picture John Cleese (evidently he equals Uther in my head) following me around with a sack of gold, bumping into me, spilling it, picking it up, spilling it again, and then sitting down to have a tantrum, before going off by coconut to seduce more women and father accursed offspring. And then I would cry out, "O! if only I hadn't accidentally Utherized my debit card!"

Observations
Item, the best book title in the world is Wirnt von Gravenberg's Wigalois. I am pretty sure it's German but how the hell do you pronounce Wigalois in German? So I pronounce it French-like. For those of you who don't speak French, that would make it more or less "wiggle-wah." Those of you who do speak French, please pretend that I am right about that.

Item, the best name in the world is Ewart Oakshott. No special instruction necessary.

Item, today I learned that Otto does not save anything he does on his computer because he doesn't know where it goes when it gets saved. I made fun of him, and then I used the fax machine wrong and got an e-mail from the recipient asking me whether I could please send it again because the pages were blank. Karma, it is real.

Blasphemy
Item, today Lindsey sent me a link to the thousand books most commonly found in libraries; you know: the Bible, Homer, Virgil, Calvin and Hobbes, etc. Having taken a look at the top 300 or so, I feel moved to say something truly terrible. SHAKESPEARE REALLY ANNOYS ME. It's like, ease up, dude. You don't have to knock us unconscious with your genius. "What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning!" What a jerk.

Item, I've gone off both bread and chocolate. Either it's a phase or the apocalypse is coming.

Vulgarities
Item, e-mail received from fellow West Winger, Katie P., after last night's episode.

Subject: ?????
First line: What the crap was that supposed to be?

This about sums it up. I felt that the episode left some questions unanswered, questions which I shall ennumerate now. Donna, where did you go? What if Josh had wanted to accidentally make out with you again? Bruno, why did you allow that to be done to your hair? Santos, why are you so dull? Hawkeye, why didn't you rewrite your lines so that they didn't make you look like a mediocre actor, which you are not? Jon Bon Jovi?! DEBORA CAHN, DID YOU GET LOCKED IN THE SECRET SERVICE VAN WITH BONO? HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? Oh, and Toby, I love you. That's not a question.

Let me just say, us girls in the forums (huggles!) [Becky, that's for you] were pret-ty bored during that dismal episode and the only thing that cheered me up (aside from getting that e-mail from Katie P.) was that someone on the forum linked to a picture of "our schmoo, Josh", looking utterly pwned, with this single, brilliant, perfect word: dipshit. I haven't heard anyone be called a dipshit since seventh grade, but boy does it fit Josh. How telling. Don't you all want to see the show now?

I will be very impressed with anyone who followed all of this. Probably not impressed enough to give you that proverbial cookie people are always talking about, but I might say "well done, you" and maybe kind of punch you in the arm.

That's all.

I will soon become a shipper, like them.

Right now I am downloading music videos made by West Wing fans featuring certain star-crossed West Wing characters. But the songs are so bad I have to mute them, so really I am just downloading silent film clips. I am, in effect, collapsing a pretty intelligent drama into a soap opera of heartbreak and tragedy, of hyper-expressive eye movements and ten different shades of repression, and, oddly enough, a lot of people looking spiffy in outerwear.

It's so great!

I think this is what they call "the first step in a long downward spiral into fangirldom." It's very much like the wraithing pro-cess, only instead of passing into the shadow world, I'll just get really, really annoying. The next thing that will happen is I'll "delurk" and start posting on shipper threads in West Wing forums. Under a name like "JealousofJaMo." Then I'll start saying "squee" a lot. In a fit of delerium -- a smack high, you might say -- it will come to me that editing together a string of fairly random, low-res clips and laying a Celine Dion ballad over it is the best idea I've ever had. That will be hitting rock bottom.

This is all Ivan's fault. I specifically remember her saying to me, one prophetic day in high school, "You should become a speech writer like Sam Seaborn. Have you ever seen The West Wing?"

Thanks, Ivan. Super. NOW I AM A SLAVE TO ITS WILL.

Vikings Take the Capitol, then Give it Back

On Sunday, 19 February 2006, a horde of Norse invaders touched down at Dulles Airport in Virginia and proceeded by coach into the Nation Capitol Region, whereupon they took the subway to central D.C. and trundled four or five blocks with suitcases to the headquarters of their political-insider comrade, who in order to protect her identity shall be referred to as A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers. The next day, the Vikings and A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers met up with their old friend She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud, and here is what they plundered, in chronological order.

Tuesday: National Zoo

A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers had plundered tickets allowing the Vikings and She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud to see the baby panda recently born at the National Zoo. This was of particular interest to the Vikings as they had been hearing about the panda from Ivan. Over in the land of fleas and smog, Ivan had been editing a TV special on the panda for weeks, which drove her mad for a period.

Exhibit A:
Ivan: I HAVE HAD A LOT OF CAFFEINE
Ivan: AND NOTHING TO EAT
Ivan: I NEED TO EAT
Ivan: MAKE ME A PANDA SANDWICH

Exhibit B:
Ivan: pandas
Ivan: running amok
Ivan: mating everywhere

Naturally the insanity-inducing panda baby became of interest, and so the Vikings went to plunder it.

Sitting in this tree, like a very large furry coconut, is a panda cub with superb balance. In front, Viking warrior Svartr, showing his enthusiasm.

Svartr found that being photographed fed his vanity so efficiently that he encouraged all the Vikings to join in. Next up: Haukr in front of the capybara cage in the elephant house.


Unlike cheerful Svartr, Haukr doesn’t look very happy. This is because the zoo does not appear to recognize the marketability of giant South American water-hogs, the largest rodent on earth. Why should a capybara be in the elephant house? Why do the elephants get names, and the capybara does not? And why, in the quarter-hour that Haukr stood mesmerized by the enormous cousin of the guinea pig, did no less than four people say variations of, “What is that, some kind of rat?” Haukr feels capybaras do not get the credit they deserve for being the darlingest creatures on earth (Haukr’s words), as evidenced in Bill Peet’s wonderful and tragically out-of-print book Capyboppy, which the populace would do well to check out of the library and read and immediately become converted to the cult of the capybara.

Darling.
Darlinger.
Darlingest.
Most darlingest.
Unrelated: This picture is totally unedited. Witness the power of Odin. And sunlight probably frying the lens of my camera. Neat!


Thursday: National Gallery Exhibit Cézanne in Provence


Óláfr, pictured here in front of one of his favorite Cézanne pieces, The Bay from L’Estaque, thought Cezanne’s use of color “was thoughtful.” Pressed, he said the piece was “excavatory, immersive, a contraction of the spirit, a descent.” Óláfr then wept heartily and had to be taken to a corner to regain composure, mumbling about the “nullity of the extracircumferential phenonemena.” Svartr had to be removed to a quiet corner as well, but that was because he found it too, too funny that Cézanne’s eloquent description of his own new, impressionist style was “ballsy.”

Friday: Smithsonian American History Museum & Monuments

A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers and She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud, represented here by Tyrfingr and Úlfarr, conceded to being photographed in front of the sign that said “Whatever Happened to Polio?” because golly, those were the good old days, back when sometimes kids would wake up paralyzed for no apparent reason. Cheers to that. The poster shows Elvis being happily vaccinated. In some archive somewhere there is probably another picture showing that they needed a second dose for his hair alone.


Then Tyrfingr also wanted to be photographed in front of the Smithsonian’s token Disney artifacts: the Dumbo and teacups rides from Disney World.

Tyrfingr is levitating in this picture. Shh.
Tyrfingr remembers how, as a very young child, these rides were such favorites with him that he once threw a royal fit when made to get off the Dumbo ride after his fifth or sixth turn. The life of the Viking child is often full of such privations, and he wiped away a bitter tear before becoming distracted by all kinds of Nationally Important Things, like the Original Kermit and Mr. Roger’s Sweater and the First Teddy Bear.

Little known fact: Oscar the Grouch is considered by Vikings to have come straight from Valhalla.
Also on display: the Star-Spangled Banner and a lot of dresses and Abraham Lincoln’s hat. When Tyrfingr commented that the hat looked a little worse for wear, it was pointed out to him that the hat had “been through a lot” such as the sudden murder of its owner, but Tyrfingr still insists that there is no excuse for neglect in one’s personal appearance, and Tyrfingr should know.

The Smithsonian’s gift shop, incidentally, sells Mars Mud. It does not say so on the label, but if you add some liquor and give them both to a certain one of the Vikings’ friends, the combination creates She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud. Her middle name is And Laughs and Laughs.

But before all that happened, the Vikings walked around the Washington Monument and through the World War II monument and down to the Lincoln Memorial, stopping to see both the Vietnam and Korean Memorials, through all of which the Vikings were very well-behaved because it was too cold to pillage properly, and if you can’t put your heart into pillaging, you oughtn’t to do it at all.


Óláfr, here being very naughty and climbing on Abraham Lincoln, said the experience of seeing the monuments “was thoughtful.” He expanded to say, that the “nullity of the extracircumferential phenonemena” was “excavatory, immersive, a contraction of the spirit, a descent.” It transpired that he is prone to quote Beckett when moved. Haukr, ever the optimist, said he thought of Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s anti-war masterpiece Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, in which Fortune forsakes corrupt England for the innocent new republic, America:

But fairest flowers expand but to decay;
The worm is in thy core, thy glories pass away;
Arts, arms and wealth destroy the fruits they bring;
Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring.
Crime walks thy streets, Fraud earns her unblest bread,
O'er want and woe thy gorgeous robe is spread,
And angel charities in vain oppose:
With grandeur's growth the mass of misery grows.

Haukr continued on to say he was indifferently curious to see for what country Fortune would forsake America.

His dire sentiments, however, fell away upon the momentous occasion of Einarr being made an Invasive Weed Control DEPUTY. The event occurred unexpectedly at the National Botanic Garden when Einarr was handed the following item:


Einarr takes his new position very seriously.


Oddly enough, he seems to be under the impression that the “Invasive Weeds” are social conservatives, which misunderstanding can lead to nothing but his eventual arrest for assault.

Sunday: No, You Cannot Take a Club in Your Carry-On

Having successfully plundered the zoo, a number of museums and their gift shops, the Library of Congress, and the White House (from a distance of course; otherwise they shoot you), the Vikings sadly parted with She Who Makes Obscene Sounds with Mars Mud and A Lover of Trotsky and Other Dead Philosophers and went back to their desk jobs, saying to each other, “Alas. But we shall always have the Capitol!” which of course translates as NARGH PANDAS NARGH!

Hugh

I bought Hugh last Friday and at the time he was a very handsome Cyclamen plant. Long straight flowers pointing toward the sky, deep leaves of green, a complex root system. Hugh was an excellent specimen. Past tense. Can I just start this post with my plant death count? I have five plants in my room, half of which are in various stages of death and dying, bringing my total number of plants killed to six-- two lost to spider mites, two to over-watering, one to replanting and one to the Forces that Control the Universe because I swear I didn't do anything wrong. But Hugh seemed hearty- that's why I bought him! And I wanted to give him a good home, so I put him in the window to get some quality morning light. I went to bed and when I woke up and opened the blinds, Hugh looked like this: actually, that's Hugh on the mend, originally he looked like an Orca Whale in captivity, flowers propped up on the ground for support. So here's Hugh looking like a mistreated SeaWorld resident and here's Ivan smacking her head and saying over and over "why, Hugh, why?!" But Ivan, always the optimist, thought "ok, window bad, lets put Hugh on the balcony" which got us to exhibit one. And then I put him indoors in a dark corner and that got me to exhibit two:
"Hugh the Sun Hating, Fluorescent Light Loving, Miracle Plant".
But who knows, by tomorrow all his leaves could fall off and he could sprout flesh eating fungi, he seems like that kind of plant. I'll keep you posted.

things you don't want to hear at your first pool workout after a three year hiatus...

"hey, nice to meet you! great day to start... we're doing a one mile swim... for time!"

moving on

today I went downstairs and told my landlord, in 30 days, i'm outta here. "but why?" said helen, a sweet 70-year-old who has been nothing but wonderful to me for the last year and two months. I explained things just weren't working out with the roommates, that my repeated attempts to do things like "clean" were being thwarted by idiots who can't keep iced tea in a glass instead feeling the need spread it all over the floor. or cook popcorn in oil and then leave the oil all over the stove.

And that my repeated attempts to do things like "sleep" were being thwarted by idiots who watch movies like "saving private ryan" and "apocalypse now" and "rambo 7" at 3am. movies that make me to wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I'm not in my expensive, cozy room on the west side, but in the middle of normandy beach. "can't you look the other way?" she said. I could, but the short one has a cat, a cat he is intent on killing, but it's alive right now and that's all that matters. this cat has fleas, lots of fleas. idiot roommate has done nothing about this. oh! wait! i forgot! he sprayed the floor with a flea killer and then let the cat walk around on it! problem solved! but they're still in the house (the roommates and the fleas) and i hear they are known carriers of the bubonic plague (the fleas... and possibly the roommates. one does have a nasty cough) and i refuse the die from the plague! i deserve better than the plague! i want dysentary or brain leisons at the very least!

But poor Sol and Helen just looked at me like I was ruining god's master plan. "You're never going to find a better place. We keep the rent low for you. I say 'lets not raise the rent for the young ones, it will not make us any richer, they need the money more'" and then Sol pipes in, Sol who lived through Auschwitz and loves to tell me "could be worse" because literally, it could be, says "and the lemons! we give you all the lemons you want!" and at this point my heart breaks and I promise to try and work things out with the boys.

But really, things can't be worked out. You can only change a guy who plays online poker 9 hours a day so much. It's time to move on. I don't think I'll ever find an apartment where the landlords care so much and the lemons are doled out so freely, but at least I won't die of the plague.

Speedy Delivery

This morning I came in and took off my coat, hung it up, and put my sweater on.

Then I took my boots off and put my shoes on.

Then, from downstairs, I heard the delivery man say as he was leaving, "Have a FedEx day! And a FedEx weekend!"

And the conclusion I formed was that I did not wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning as much as wake up in an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Never again will I doubt my ability to contribute to the general happiness of others.

Me: Achoo!
Eloise: God, I love it when you do that. It's so funny.

To Semi-Accurately Quote My Father: "Why should 'nuisance of cats' be plural? It only takes one."

Last night was my first night house-sitting in the Land of Wind and Snow. After lugging all my stuff inside, through the aforementioned wind and snow, I went to get the mail. Discovered the snow plow had come by. Evidence: mailbox looked like it had been hit by a mean right hook. It was off-kilter, dented, slack-jawed and appeared to be wincing. It reminded me of the flower in Catullus 11. But mostly it was funny.

I passed a reasonably pleasant evening locating things in the kitchen, unpacking my stuff, and making the acquaintance of all three cats--one brain-damaged, one feral and one which seems fairly normal but may be possessed of some hidden madness. I also re-learned how to use the kind of television that doesn't have a remote control. It's been a decade since I heard the term "UHF." Amazingly, I did not miss it.

Upon retiring to bed, I quickly discovered that the cats, all of them, expect to sleep in the master bedroom. With me. Sitting on me, creeping over me, meowing at me, doing everything but actually sleeping. As a result I have been wide awake since 5am. This in combination with the opera that is playing right now at work, and by playing I mean terrorizing my ears, may prove to be terminal, which is why I am blogging at work. I will die before they have a chance to fire me. And my cause of death will be "surfeit of cats."

Yes, I did just photograph my chest and post it on the Internet.

This post is going to be about things I forgot to mention at the time. For instance, for my birthday, I got a truly amazing sweatshirt from Ivan, specially embroidered with that timeless exclamation, "Nargh!"

Viking loungewear


While I thrust my narghy chest in everyone's face for a month afterward, saying "DON'T YOU WISH THIS WAS YOURS? WELL YOU CAN'T GET ONE! IT'S ONE OF A KIND!", I never posted about it. It came with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and smelled like chocolate for weeks. It baffles my coworkers. I guess they don't realize that Vikings are intrinsically funny. Some people are weird. Anyway, I've been thinking of other things that would be great on a sweatshirt and although many of them are Latin obscenities I think also a large HWAET! would be enjoyable as well. But only for me and the two other people who have read Beowulf.

For Christmas, I got something I should have taken a picture of and posted immediately. My grandmother, the one who met President Bush and said later she almost bit him, saw this in a catalogue and apparently thought of me.

Patchogue


As far as I know, Simon and Ivan are strangers to her, and so it is rather a startling coincidence, really. It is named Patchogue, after a town on Long Island near where my grandparents live. You can't tell from the rather yellow quality of this picture, but Patchogue is olive green, patterned, and in every way splendid. You should have seen him with his wig. Also splendid.

Also concerning my grandmother: she learned that I needed a hat and after Christmas, I got one in the mail. It was grape purple, thick, and . . . splendid. About a week later, I got another, modeled here by Patchogue.

Hat


The note said "For your more fantastical occasions." Indeed! My grandmother descends from ministers and educators practically as far back as Plymouth Rock. When I was little there seemed to me no explanation for the strange ways of my family other than that all these forefathers were Puritans, whose hellfire-and-brimstone work ethic had been passed down to us later generations mainly in the form of an unbelievable consistency in preparing meals with all the food groups, going to bed before ten, and using the television solely to watch the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour. But I guess the truth is that my grandmother is a sort of New Puritan, the kind that buys a sinfully gaudy hedgehog doorstop, knits a jester hat really just for the hell of it, and would happily bite the leader of the free world as revenge for him being a total idiot. And even if New Puritanism involves eating a lot more vegetables than a rational person would ever want, I think I could really get behind that lifestyle. Unless it forbade me to take pictures of my chest and post them on the Internet. That right I will never surrender.

In other news, and I don't have a picture for this, I am no longer Simon, Girl Reporter. I gave up my job at the local paper because I was very bad at it. Also I hated it. Also I had one of those moments of clarity when you realize you are wasting valuable time doing something that brings you no joy (except for the rare occasion when somebody says something SO outrageous it's funny, like "Why can't we close the parks on Sunday mornings so kids don't have to choose between sports and church?" Answer: "Because of the Constitution.") and you might as well use that time doing something that brings you monstrous levels of frustration, irritation, and anger, such as writing. If I did have a picture of this moment of clarity, it would be of me at my computer surrounded by Greek muses cooperatively engaged in throwing thousands and thousands of hardcover copies of the Riverside Shakespeare at my head. Parts of me would be bleeding, but the general feel of the composition, I believe, would be happiness. Because while procrastinating I would be posting pictures of my chest on the Internet and blogging about it.

that darn cat

Maude moved in last week. She's a rather intimidating spider, but she curled up in the corner such a sweet, non-threatening, "i'm going to die in four or five minutes so don't worry about me" way, that I let her stay. We fell into a routine, a rather elaborate ritual where I would blow on her to see of she was alive and then yell "What are you doing wasting your life in a corner! What did he do to you! No one puts Maude in the corner! Pull yourself together, Maude!" and she would extend one leg, as if trying to pull herself from the depths of despair, and then crumple into a shape that only a severely depressed spider can achieve.

That was life with Maude- until I let the Cloudy in. The cat has taken to mewing for thirty or forty minutes outside my room in a manner I can only equate with Chinese water torture and I was so close to digging my eyes out with a fork I opened the door. Cat made a beeline for Maude and knocked her cruelly, brutally, from her corner. She curled up and took the beating until I pulled the cat off and threw it back into the living room. "Maude!" I cried. But she was motionless. Goodbye Maude. It crossed my mind she might be faking, that she might just be wounded, playing dead to fool the cat and that she might be angry I didn't intervene earlier.

Naaahhhhh. Maude's dead. I went back to watching TV but for some reason i felt the need to look at the wall RIGHT next to my head, AND THERE WAS MAUDE.

AND SHE LOOKED ANGRY. Now she's stalking me. I swear to god wherever I move in the room she follows. She's no longer depressed, she has a PURPOSE in life. So in light of Maude the killer spider, I'm letting Cloudy hang out. He seems pretty hell bent on eating her and I have to say, I whole-heartedly support his efforts.

The Missing

The pasta strainer went missing just after the new year. I was annoyed for six or seven days but I got over it and started using a slotted spoon. And then the pasta strainer magically reappeared and I find myself wondering what exactly one of the roommates was doing with a pasta strainer, in their room, for sixteen days. For all I know they've been using it to strain stray hairs out of their bathtub or as a planter for whatever strange fungi grows on their side of the apartment. A pasta strainer should never leave the kitchen. It serves no purpose other than to drain water off your soggy noodles... Either way, not knowing where it's been makes me never ever want to use it again. I've been thinking about building a cage since it's now unfit to drain food. I will rig the pasta strainer so every time that stupid cat comes near my room it will drop Mouse Trap style and teach the damn thing a lesson. Yes. That is what I must do.

zephyr

it's windy here in january. no one really cares about a breeze when it's 75 and sunny, but since it's the only climate related abnormality we have, it's officially a conversation piece. so it was inevitable on the walk to seven-eleven that someone would say "it's windy out here," and it just made my day when dylan pointed to the man with the leaf blower and said "yeah, those things sure are powerful."

Christening

This is my car. It suffered four months without a name. But it suffers no longer. Now I suffer, having discovered the mischevious spirit that lurks within its innocent, shiny white exterior. This car longs for one thing and one thing only. Mud. Not the fine coating of grit that every car develops in the winter, as if it hasn't shaved for three days. This car wants to wallow. It wants to sit in a mudhole and flap. It wants to dig with its snout in the saturated earth, and it wants to roll over, and it wants to wiggle its wheels in the air as it coats itself in mud. And it takes every opportunity it sees to do this. I could have named it Questionable Turning Radius, or Needs Better Treads on Wheels, or Thank Goodness Its Small Enough to Push Out of Holes, but those are obviously too cumbersome to shout when its back tires start gleefully spinning mud up, over, and onto the windshield. And they do not do enough to implicitly absolve me of any part I may have had in the escapades to which I refer. So I name it, with affection, Pig, and please forgive me if instead of breaking champagne I pour a bottle of Mr Clean over its hood.

Snapshots

I was pretty happy to put 3,000 miles between me and my family (glad none of you are talking, good way to keep the verbal abuse down) and I have to say, I was in a decent mood when I got to my apartment Sunday afternoon. It was a nice day of unpacking, watching tv, flipping through the mail... flipping through the mail! wait! a letter from the Traffic Violations Bureau. what?! I have no violations! I am an excellent driver! (no comments, please). I opened the letter and found pictures of me in the process of what the state of California calls a "Fail to Stop Red Signal" and what I call "Making it Through the Intersection in a Timely Fashion". For my convenience they provided two candids of my crime, enlarging the second to reveal the driver of my vehicle. In this case it was in fact me screaming "FUCK" and making faces at the person in front of me because they STOPPED in the middle of the intersection and that is why I didn't make it through. The ticket was issued by Deputy Zenon Porche. Zenon Porche, closely related to Ford Prefect, reviewed my photo and decided the best way to deal with me, the menace to society that i am, was with a $350 fine. $350 for a traffic violation he did not witness! Zenon Porche, had you actually been sitting on the corner of La Brea and Santa Monica instead of at your desk, eating doughnuts and looking at pictures of people who committed NO REAL CRIME, I would have some respect for you. Alas, I think you're a raging ARSE. I googled you and found you'd given over 5,000 tickets in the West Hollywood area. JERK. So, let this be a warning to all those visiting southern california: Big Brother is Watching and he thinks you're a terrible driver.

Warm Wishes for a Very Merry Armageddon!

This came in the mail at work. Surely I will not be dooced for scanning it (at work) and then posting it on my blog, because I have cleverly removed the name of the company that sent it to us. I don’t think we work with them anyway, which is much to my relief because all I could think of when I saw this was Harold Pinter and his “comedies of menace.”

Harold Pinter, whom I had never heard of until my class on British playwrights, is, surprisingly enough, a British playwright. He writes what critics have called “comedies of menace” which are, surprisingly enough, plays that are both comedic and menacing. When the Nobel Committee chose to award Pinter the Literature Prize in October, they specified that he “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms” and that is precisely what he does, usually much to the theater-goer's discomfort.

If this postcard isn’t the very picture of oppression’s closed room, I don’t know what is. It could easily be an illustration from one of Pinter’s later, little-known forays into children’s literature. It is never too early for the little bastards to learn that a socio-political Armageddon is on its way, and that they had better prepare themselves for the ugly truth that Jolly Old Saint Nick is a fascist who claims to know everything about everyone and dispenses justice quite freely without so much as a glance of recognition at the Hague--and all this while posing as a kindly father figure whose great beneficence it would be unthinkable to dispute.

Meanwhile, little Rudolph, easily recruited on account of his unpopularity with the other reindeer, finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless tyrant. Below, the text of Pinter’s timeless children’s classic, “Christmas Eve.”

Santa: Ho, ho, ho.

Pause.

Santa: Ho, Rudolph, pleasant evening, wouldn’t you say?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Nice and cold.

Pause.

Santa: Wouldn’t you say?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Then say it!
Rudolph: Very cold, sir. Very nice.
Santa: Yes, I think so, too.

Pause.

Santa: What does my watch say, Rudolph?
Rudolph: It is approximately half past five, sir.
Santa: Is it? Oh yes. I must have looked at it upside-down. I thought it was nearly midnight.

Pause.

Santa: If it were nearly midnight, you’d be in bad shape with those Christmas cards, wouldn’t you? You’d be five minutes from the deadline.
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: You know why the call it the deadline, don’t you?
Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: You say you do?
Rudolph: I do, sir.
Santa: Brave of you to keep up the leisurely place, then, isn't it?

Pause.

Rudolph: Yes, sir.
Santa: Very brave indeed. Well, good luck, Rudolph.

Pause.

Rudolph: Thank you, sir.
Santa: And Merry Christmas.

Slight pause.

Santa: Ho ho ho.

THE END.

The moral of this post is: Do not send Christmas cards to your friends that make them want to phone Amnesty International and turn in Santa Clause.

Abbie, Doctor of Philosophy

My mother has been teaching the dog to count.

She says, "I teach, it's what I do. I don't care whether it's a dog or not, I'm going to teach it."

Apparently, for the last nine years, my mother has been counting Abbie's muddy paws as she dries them. When I asked whether she did it the same way every time, whether Abbie knew her hind left foot was #3, she said no, and seemed to think that was odd.

Abbie stood there and panted. Outwardly she was saying, "Duhhhhhhh, I'm hungry." But inside that furry little head she was thinking, "I have already extrapolated the existence of the quadratic formula. Now feed me, because I am a genius."

The only thing holding her back now is not having opposable thumbs, but I'm sure she'll take care of that as soon as she maps the canine genome, which is probably her plan for next Tuesday between 3 and 5pm. Until then she will devote her time to deconstructing the Shakespearean canon with an eye toward his treatment of women in Greek myth, and in her spare time she'll fine-tune her artistic style which, until she gets thumbs at least, will likely be reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's.

Any day now we'll come home and find that someone has painted "Four legs good, two legs bad" on the garage door. Inside, we will hear the strains of Abbie fluently speaking multiple languages as she simultaneously disarms the Iraqi insurgency, creates peace in the Middle East, opens a can of whoopass on North Korea, and practises juggling with bowling pins.

So I guess some good can come of this. But I want my collection of Dickens back and no, I will not man the keyboard so she can try to beat my time in Minesweeper.

Harriet Goes to the Dark Side

[There is a heating man checking out the insulation in the ceiling.]

Otto: Does he realize he's stuck up there if we move this ladder?
Eloise: You could mention it to him.
Otto: Hmm.

[clatter, bang]

Harriet: I can see I'm going to have to keep a better eye on Otto.
Otto: What?!
Harriet: Did you just move the ladder?
Otto: Oh, I was just getting water!
Harriet: Did you put it back?
Otto: Yes!
Harriet: Good.

[Pause.]

Harriet: God, wouldn't that be funny?

Atkins would smile

i purged all products containing grain from my cupboard yesterday- not because i believe in the benefits of a low-carb diet, but because my rice was starting to grow wings. yes. wings. like, each kernel is going to fly away, wings. my bags of rice and whole grain pasta and my box of grits were completely infested with grain moths. i don't know how they got there, but they actually burrow into your food and spin webs in it and hatch in it and i'm so ridiculously grossed out, that i can't bring myself to eat carbs again. grain moths: yet another reason i will smile when california falls into the ocean.

awesome is...

awesome is: ending a verbal altercation with your coworker by shutting the door... on your boss' hand... severing the nailbed and breaking his fingernail cleanly in half... and then spending the evening with him in the emergency room... while he calls his friends and leaves messages like "hey, yeah, my employee cut off the top of my finger... we're gonna have to postpone the golf game".

plea to a psychic spider

i was watching a spider on the wall. and then i got distracted. and now i can't find it. last time i lost track of it, it showed up in one of my sweaters. and yesterday it was on the bathroom windowsill. it knows i washed it's cousin/brother/wife (who can tell with spiders) down the drain last year. and i watched my boss kill a black widow with a golf club last week. psychic spider knows these things. please forgive me, spider... and please don't climb up my nose while i'm sleeping. please. please.

A Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving

The proper Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving begins, as all good things do, with Wegmans. In fact, it is with Wegmans that this post is principally concerned. Where else can you have a five-course meal starting with poached Etruscan salmon, just by strategically hitting up free sample booths? Okay, maybe Harrods. But where else can you wash down your kingly feast with Magic Hat #9? Only Wegmans. Thus, the traditional celebration starts with a midafternoon drive to Wegmans, which is always always always held up by the traditional Slow/Drunk/Extremely Aged Driver whose Tercel we generally follow all the way from the blinking red light on 251. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without this person. It would be a lot better.

This year, both of us being persons of independent means (or practically), we allowed ourselves to be seduced by the case of glazed fruit tarts and tartlets, custards, eclairs, napoleons, and mousses. They have names like "Dôme Chocolat" and "Napolean Vanille" because this is the "Parisian-inspired desserts" case. Evidently the butter is French and the vanilla is from Madagascar. I don't care if the butter comes from native Iowa cows, there's nothing like a glistening fruit tart in a fancy box that would have cost £6.50 at Betty's.

So that took care of the Faux Parisian Dessert food group. We still had the Nacho Cheesier food group and the Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand food group, which holes in our nutritional pyramid we filled with a swift trip down the snack aisle. And then we decided that was enough because even during the holidays, you don't want to overindulge.

A Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving is not complete without a ritual viewing of Anne of Avonlea, during which one struggles with the following issues:

(1) Do you or do you not feel sorry for Morgan Harris when Anne rejects his proposal? (Ultimately it was decided that Morgan Harris might be dashing, but Gilbert Blythe has better handwriting.)

(2) Do the charms of turn-of-the-century fashion (i.e. gloves, the vest/skirt ensemble, the dramatic poofy hair) outweigh the glaring horrors of period headgear (i.e. giant hairbows and things that were clearly walking around saying cluck cluck or tweet tweet or hee haw before they were shot and made into hats)? Still undecided.

(3) Do Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have anything to do with Idaho? Yes, but we can't say why.

If there was a Simon and Ivan Thanksgiving Blessing, it would go like this: Dear Bob, thank you for Wegmans and Kevin Sullivan Productions and old friends. And thanks also for mint M&Ms. Better late than never.

I'd Like to Issue a Statement

Last night I did some laundry.

I realize now that this was very irresponsible of me and I would like to apologize to the families of those people who will surely suffer as a result. Sorry, Cheneys. Sorry, Blairs. Sorry, Other World Leaders, namely U2 and Oprah.

There is reason to believe my socks are planning a world takeover, and I know for certain that they will not be defeated by the discovery that this planet is 70% covered in water. They know. And they're not allergic to soap, either.

Their ringleader is a certain sock of mine whose identity cannot be ascertained. Whenever questioned, my socks pull a Spartacus on me and tell me they are all called Joe Boxer. (This is the name of their gang, which is tattooed in their soles.) We will call this sock Agent One. Agent One is a Ringspun Cotton Double-Cushion Reinforced-Heel-and-Toe Quarter-Cut Women's Shoe Size 5-9 Sock, but don't let his nancy-boy description fool you. This is a heavy, durable, almost bulletproof sock. A sock you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Agent One has made several escape attempts already. It falls on the floor between the washer and dryer whenever it can. It hides in the dryer every single week, waiting for its chance. It jumps out of the laundry basket regularly and has been intercepted during escape several times by my mother, ever the foiler of evil plots perpetrated by laundry, or the worlds of mathematics and science. Agent One is motivated entirely by either

the desire to become the Pre-eminent Sock Emperor of the Millennium (the fact that it spent a year in Europe in and is still going strong is evidence that it is working on technology that will someday render it immortal) or

freedom.

It will stop at nothing to achieve these sinister aims.

This brings me to last night. Last night, whilst doing my laundry, I made the terrible discovery that Agent One, too high-profile to do it himself, sent out another sock as a scout. Right now, the suspect, which we shall call Agent Two, is roaming free. It is a thin, slightly dressy Gold Toe sock, which is why I never suspected it. It made its escape at approximately 8:27 EST and hasn't been seen since, but is known to be in communcation with Agent One and the Joes Boxer. I suspect they are planning further atrocities.

It is on the strength of this evidence that I suggest that in order to prevent the assassinations and widespread barefootedness that will occur if Agent Two is not quickly apprehended, we should raise the Terror Alert Level to Orange and go about our daily activities with extreme caution. The sock is on the march.

Obviously written during a lunch break.

First I want to say that this is the season of apples. Apples should be everwhere, they should be fresh, and they should be crisp. Yet what I find is that the apple I have before me, sitting innocently on my desk, is of abominable quality. It is misshapen, first of all. Its color is lacking: beneath the pleasant red-green blush lurks a foundation of brown. But these are merely cosmetic flaws. The real problem is that it is irreversibly bruised. Not the kind of bruises where your mom tells you about all the starving people in the world and makes you eat it anyway. No. Not that kind. The kind where, if it was a person, they'd amputate. The kind where eating it is like nipping through a minefield. For the taste of rotten apple flesh is the taste of DEATH. These bruises are terminal. We must learn to treat apples with care, as we would treat, for example, a hemophiliac. If you know an apple farmer, or a supermarket manager, please tell them to stop holding impromptu baseball games with their produce before selling them to the unsuspecting public. This is abuse and it must be stopped.

Overheard

"The TRUTH?! ... The truth only sets you free and that's not even true."

CRAWL FOR IT!

And that's just one of many things Ivan and I will yell at trick-or-treaters, after hurling their candy as far into the darkness as possible, when we are acerbic but spry white-haired cat ladies.

X=Eat the doughnut.

If someone at work brings in donuts for your birthday, and the apple you brought for lunch is suspiciously squooshy, do the combined factors of (1) it being almost the 30th and (2) your healthy food having literally rotted make it okay to substitute two donuts for the one apple? There is so much air in doughnuts, and apples are so dense. In fact, if I were to establish an equation describing the relationship between apples and donuts, it would probably say A+3/2G=3D(2H)(1/2R), with A being Apples, D being doughnuts, G being guilt, H being death by heart attack before the age of thirty, and R being the part where I vow to run every morning for the rest of my life. And the numbers being randomly assigned so as to create the illusion of complexity. Unfortunately the equation is rendered undefined on account of the fact that I can't figure out which spelling of donut/doughnut is correct.

Wanted: Small-Town Lex Luthor. Must Refuse to Mow Lawn. Desire to Subdivide and Develop Property Required. Untrained Black Labrador a Plus.

I was promised juicy material when I signed up for this job with the local paper. I was told the meetings would be full of yelling and that I shouldn't give my phone number to local officials because they would use it if they didn't like my articles. I was made to believe I might find myself uttering the words, "Look, mister, this town ain't big enough for the both of us," and "You better make like a tree and leave, bigshot." But this showdown has not occurred. Nor have any showdowns occured within my hearing. Negatory on the showdowns. In fact, here are some words I wrote down at a recent planning board meeting, to give you an idea of what an adorable and harmless town we really are:

Big Bertha
clambake
Doc Whatsit
signage
verbage
cow

So harmless we are almost lethal. The closest I've gotten to scandal is the following statement: "Yeah. That's what we listen to in the Clerk's office. Cop-killing rap. That's what me and a bunch of 65-year-old ladies listen to. [Pause] They complain if I play country." So, not very close. Welcome to Lois & Clark: The Boring Edition.

movie of the week

we went to lunch with our boss. the following is a reconstructed conversation:
Boss: So guess what.
Us: What?
Boss: I got an email from some girl on Friday. Hadn't talked to her in 13 years. And guess what...
Us: you have a 13-year-old son?
Boss: Actually... yes.

Justifications For a Promising Future in Homicidal Mania

-I drove to my aunt's house for the 800th time since moving to LA this weekend and for the 799th time got on the 10 West instead of the 10 East only realizing my error upon that critical "point of no return", where going the direction I meant to go would cause a 500 car pile up. Since I have made this mistake 799 times, I have spend a total of 600 more hours in the car than necessary.
-I arrived at said aunt's house at an hour only suitable for sleeping so I decided to wash my face. While attempting to remove the only cleanser in my eleven-year-old cousin's bathroom, a foaming bubble-gum scented hand soap, from my eyes, I slammed my forehead (with an impressive amount of force) into the faucet. I now have a severe headache and a bruise in the middle of my forehead. The headache may be from the injury or from the bubble gum scent. I will keep you posted.
-The job I quit because I was going insane hired someone else and when they realized the new employee was incompetent, they called me to do the actual work. new employee is now my assistant. I was proud for .02 seconds until I saw his timecard and realized they pay him 25% more than me to do my bitch-work.
-I keep having dreams where an ex-boyfriend returns to collect the futon he left at my apartment. I'm not sure what my subconscious fears more- the loss of the futon or confrontation with the ex.
-My hour of Sunday escapism, Grey's Anatomy, was interrupted eight times with a ticker proclaiming "RAIN!!! IT'S GOING TO RAIN!!! YOU MIGHT NEVER MAKE IT TO WORK AGAIN!!! TRAFFIC WILL STOP!!! RAIN RAIN RRRRAAAAIIIINNNNN" get over yourself, Southern California.
-I'm trying to turn myself into a morning person so I set my alarm for 6:45 every morning and every morning, instead of running, I go back to sleep and wake up with 37 seconds to get dressed, brush my teeth, eat half a handful of peanut butter m&ms for breakfast and leave for work. Things are not going well.
-NARGH!

Game Show

It's called "Guess What Scene in the Book of Genesis this Illustrates!"

For Ivan!

I realize now that my last post did not really make sense. It was late and I was carrying on several conversations, live and electronic, all at once. What happened was that I went to my sister's house to watch Alias, which led to watching CSI, which led to watching Without a Trace, which is a pretty dumb show but oddly mesmerizing. At about 11:00 I headed home. Pleasant drive. Very dark. A few deer. Christine's latest mix. Yes, very nice. All very nice.

Then I pulled onto my road and there was this van pulled over on the lawn by my house. Odd, I thought. Then I revised that to Creepy. It reminded me of the time I was walking home one night in the dark and there was a truck pulled over on the road and its lights were on and I had to go right by it and it was shortly after I had seen Joy Ride and all I could think of was that insane truck driver saying "CANDY-CAAAYNE?" and it started to feel like the first five minutes of an X-Files episode--you know anyone who appears in those first five minutes is doomed to die some strange and horrible death--and yeah, this reminded me of that.

And then I realized it was Matt and Adam, who are sketchy but not dangerously so. They had apparently stationed themselves outside of my house some time earlier in a sort of friendly stakeout, waiting for me to get back. Along with all of their other blogiversary items they brought the card from above, which Ivan might like to see. So there it is. Happy anniversary, Ivan! I'm not having Magic Hat and cupcakes without you, so you better be back for Christmas. Then we can start planning out how to make money with the blog. I mean, you're in LA after all. We can turn this to our advantage. Next time you see a famous person I want you to go up to them and say in a booming announcer voice:

"From the creative team that brought you the political thriller Eddie Happlin and the title of Body in the Closet, Captive in the Car comes a new, feel-good comedy with all the suspense and great titles of the past but none of the violence and bloodshed. See what's in store for Ivan as she dodges flying ash on deserted Los Angeles freeways! And find out how long it will take Simon to scratch her new car! This and more on Les Fabuleux Destins de Deux Herrisons, the bicoastal blog with the French title, hedgehog fixation, and truly dizzying intellect. Rated G for Great."

They might think you're insane, but that won't necessarily mean we can't option our blog as a movie. In fact it would probably help.

No Fair!

I find it incredibly unfair that I had to miss the one year agouti and donuts party, but I will celebrate our blog from afar. Being 3,000 miles away means I have to miss things like that. But The Forces that Control the Universe did not forget about me. They sent me a special "Happy one full year of complaining about Los Angeles" present. When I got on the freeway this afternoon it was practically empty... 5:00pm and I could go a whole 27mph all the way to the valley. I think I might have gotten up to 32 once. It was nothing short of amazing. Granted, the valley was on fire and it rained ash most of the way... but hey, glass half full. Happy Blog Anniversary, Simon! It has been a wonderful year of writing. Your posts never cease to amuse me, though they often make me miss you terribly! Have some Magic Hat and a Cupcake for me! ~Ivan