Catculating

I woke up feeling lekker this morning. Leap Day! What an awesome holiday; all you have to do is jump around a bit and voila, you've got a party on your hands. Bonus points for balloons on your mailbox, the international symbol for party on over here. Furthermore, it's Friday, which is rarely a bad thing. And on top of that, I'm going to a party for a tree tonight, which makes me feel good that I have chosen friends who really will pick any excuse to have a good time - it's a quality I admire.

I leapt awake bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, which happens about once every four years. The Object, who, as we mentioned yesterday, is not having such a choice week, is more than a little cranky and contrarian. I can sympathize; he's had a pretty worthless week. But the first thing in the morning is not the right the time to lecture me about timing my shower anything. And what he doesn't realize is that if he keeps taking it out on me in the mornings, he will come to regret it.

You see, I have A Plan.

For months, I have slowly been acclimatizing Kitty and the Object to each other. And by "acclimatizing", I mean training. The cat no longer scratched the hell out of the Object's furniture (I refuse to tell you how much money I spent to make this happen), and the Object sweeps up the kitty litter in the bathroom not once, not twice, but three times a day. I do good work, no? They have come to an uneasy truce, and now like each other - well, almost. Kitty doesn't realize that the Object still sleeps with a high pressure squirt gun under his pillow, just in case. And the Object certainly doesn't realize that under my careful tutelage, kitty has become more than a little proficient with the baseball bat. The Object will never see it coming.

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Mucus

My immune system has a lazier work ethic than a stoned CVS clerk¹ , and the slightest hint of a germ will have me spewing every disgusting body sauce you can imagine from each and every little pucker in my body. On the other end of the spectrum lives the Object of my Affection's immune system, a germ trap with a cadre of white blood cells so angry you'd think they'd just found out stem cell research was banned. As a result, the Object floats through cold season atop an oblivious cloud of the snot of his wretched peers. So on the few and far between occasions that a virus does manage to penetrate the steely cell walls and claim victory for its kind, the Object has no idea what's going on. Hilarity ensues.

Consider the time a few years back when mono struck me down in the prime of my summer. Since the the Object is the only person in quite some time whose face I've sucked on, I didn't quite understand how I got kissyface disease and he walked off scott-free. The logic didn't work for him either, and a few weeks after I'd been diagnosed, he called me from his office on a steamy July da. Just to clarify, steamy because it was hot, not because of making out, which sadly became taboo in those troubled times. He'd convinced himself that if I had the smoochyface plague, he must have had it too, as evidenced by the chills, dizziness, vague corporeal aches, and general feeling of unspecific but definitely real malaise, and so he was on his way to the emergency room.

Let me reiterate the part about it being July. It was hot, sticky, and disgusting, not unlike what I imagine it would be to sit inside the puckered anus of a plump person wearing polyester pants. It also bears noting that the Object is not a whiner; that's my area of expertise². In fact, he usually gets sicker than he needs to because he spends the first few days of an illness denying its presence instead of resting up, thus goading the viruses into some sort of existential crisis in which they must validate their lives by taking over his. But this particular infirm just sort of came on one morning. "I'm gonna throw up," he mumbled. The Object does not puke, again that being my area to shine³.

Something was definitely up. I had an idea of what it was, and it was definitely not my fault. Mono, my ass!

After grabbing a cup of ice and soaking some paper towels in cold water, I sprinted the three blocks from my office to his. He was on the sidewalk, muttering and hugging himself, having somehow fashioned his body into a standing fetal position.

There was something awfully familiar about the scenario, something that hearkened back to my days as a YMCA camp counselor for rowdy 11 year-old boys, a barf-mongering bunch if I've ever seen one. What happens when you take a bunch of fifth graders with full access to a vending machine full of sugary, caffeinated beverages, and then force them to play outside in the August heat⁴ ? Well, for one, you get proficient with a cool, damp cloth and a vomit bucket.

"I have mono," he moaned. "I have to go to the ER. I think I need to be admitted."

Ignoring him, I hailed the nearest cab. As we climbed in, I directed the driver not towards the hospital, but towards home and told the Object to take off his long sleeve shirt and boots⁵. He protested, "I don't want to make out with you; I have mono!" I put a damp paper towel on his forehead I asked, "Remind me what you did yesterday?"

In a paper thin voice he rasped, "I was a still a little hungover after I left your place yesterday afternoon, so I went home and took a five mile run. Then I played a pickup game of soccer with some guys in Meridian Hill. I went home and made some pizza. I felt really tired, so I had a few beers and watched a movie, fell asleep on the couch and didn't wake up until this morning."

"And what have you had to eat today?" I probed.

"Well, I had a meeting first thing this morning, so I ran practically ran to work and didn't have time to eat. I've had a few cups of coffee though."

"So you walked in the heat; you didn't take the air-conditioned bus?"

"Yeah. Look, I don't know why we're going home; I need to go to the ER. I think I might start hallucinating." His head lolled back and I took the opportunity to pop an ice cube in his mouth. "Let's make a deal," I countered. "How about we go back to your apartment and if you're not feeling better in an hour, I'll take you to the ER."

"Only if you stay with me the whole time and take every day off that I'm in the hospital and play video games with me," he whimpered. "I have mono and it's all your fault. Never touch me again!"

"Deal." I popped another ice cube in his mouth, hoping that if I couldn't make him feel better, at least I might choke him, thereby staunching the steady flow of whinging. Fortunately, the ride was short, and we were back at his place in no time. I hefted the Object onto my shoulder and we somehow made it up to his apartment. While he recommenced his fetal position, I begged every air conditioner in the place to start cranking out snowflakes, then drew a tepid bath and asked the Object to hop in.That's when things turned ugly.

Summoning up the last tiny bit of willpower not already wilted, he summoned an ache from deep in his belly and hurled it at me,"NO! I don't wanna; please don't make me! I hate baths; I haven't had one since I was a little boy."

"If you don't get in the tub by the time I count to three, I won't play any video games with you when you're in the hospital."

Mollified, the Object started to strip down, but refused to take off his boxers. "I'm not taking them off. You're mean; so you can't see my penis. He'd meant it to cut, and it did, but only about as deep as a pair of left handed safety scissors they give to the short bus kids. In an non-huff, I walked out of the room, returning a moment later with a bottle of Gatorade. "Drink this. I'm going to run over to CVS to get some more. Just sit tight until I'm back."

When I came back ten minutes later, the Gatorade bottle was empty and the Object was looking considerably less like he'd been robbed of several vital organs and more like himself. As he dried off, he admitted that he was feeling a lot better. "I didn't know mono was so treatable," he remarked.

Now it was my turn to summon up the willpower not to smack him upside the head^6. "You don't have mono; you have heat exhaustion. It's what happens when you consume nothing but booze, crap, and coffee for three days straight, then go out in the 95 degree heat for a five mile jaunt and top it off with a ninety minute game of soccer. I told you, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun."

He'd recovered enough to affect a sniffy tone and replied, "Hey, that's not fair. I didn't eat crap. The pizza was homemade, and I used that whole wheat dough, which is crap, but not the same kind of crap you're talking about." I hushed him and said, "Watch your cartoons. I think Sesame Street comes on next."

So that was the last time the Object got sick.

Until now. I'd thought he was immune to this season's Evil Death Flu with the coughing and the hoarking green gobs and the queasy feeling that comes from having digested roughly seventeen pounds of solid mucus. You may know it as the illness that came back just when you thought you were feeling better. And then when you were feeling better from that, it came back even more pissed off that you'd tried to kill it. It is the Terminator of colds, and there's a decent chance you might end up in the hospital with pneumonia, as did a few of my coworkers. Earlier this week, the Object turned to me and said he felt it coming on, "but I think I can fight it," he said to me earnestly. "I can beat this."

While I'm proud that my darling Object is the Sarah Connors of the Evil Death Flu, I don't have the heart to tell him that no one beats the evil death flu. Even if he could beat it, he'd just die of leukemia in the end. At least it will make a hell of a movie; sometimes I just wish I didn't have to be in it.

Sigh, No Fate but What We Make...


1. Oops, that's redundant, isn't it?

2. And let me tell you, I am a bona fide VIKING!

3. Glasses of red wine, conference calls with committee chairs, monthly visitors, typhoid shots, and alternating Wednesdays - for every any and every occasion, I can provide a new and different kind of nausea. For some odd reason, this only started happening after college.

4. Ostensibly for their own good. I never did a good job of explaining that convincingly.

5. I swear I am not making that up; he was wearing actual boots.

6. Thinking back on the whole thing, I'm not actually sure I was managed to refrain.

Wasn't This An Episode of The Simpsons?

Oh, I'm so sad! I just found out via alert Poofygoer Chris that "With a squeeze of its fuzzy belly, the Sesame Street character [Elmo] now says, in a sing-song voice, 'Kill James.' "

How many people would I have loved to give this as a Christmas pressie to? I mean, clearly it's having a positive impact on kids: " "This is his absolute favorite toy,' [the mother who reported the toy] said. 'So we've been going through a lot of hassle because he's trying to climb up the counter and up the closets to get it.' "

Or better yet, the perfect Valentine! How better to represent your love than with something soft, fuzzy, red, and completely messed up? Le sigh, l'amour!

It may be too late for me, but I'm betting that guy who sent every single resident of Racine, WI a plastic dead baby fetus could definitely get some mileage out of these.

Grouchy About Oscar

I can't really get too into the Oscars, because the films I want to see take home awards never get even the slightest nod. I mean, where's the love for Lego Les Miserables?

A Message While Watching Meet the Press

Ralph, give it up. You're irrelevant.

And I Wasn't Even Drunk

I slipped on the ice several times this morning, and the third one really hurt my hip. I was worried for a bit that I'd broken it. Again.

It was a sobering thought.

An even more sobering thought: This means that Nancy Reagan and I officially worry about the same problems.

I Just Thought People Liked To Make Jokes About Crying Indians

I'm finding twenty-seven to be a paradoxical age to be; stuck in a limbo between the freshness of youth and the gravitas of age. That would make me weightless and stale. Observe:

• I buy ridiculously expensive eye cream to fight aging and some shit called free radicals,^1. but I’m still paying through my my nose for lotion to get the zits off of it.
• I’m too old for my thing for Michael Cera to be anything less than skeevy, but Adrian Brody^2. is waaay too old for me. This unfortunate set of circumstances has lead to the development of a life-threatening crush on the guy from the FreeCreditReport.com commercials.^3.

• Youngsters don’t get my jokes over email because I refuse to use emoticons, and oldsters don’t get jokes, period.
• I’m old enough that I feel slimy going onto MySpace, even to listen to up-and-coming bands, but I’m young enough that I feel a grave injustice has taken place whenever I actually have to pay for music.
• In two separate incidents on the same day (and without an ounce of irony) I chastised a Gen Xer for being too jaded and cynical but snidely informed a recent college graduate she isn’t going to change the world in her entry level job at a PR firm in the Virginia suburbs.
• Being carded is still a hassle, but these days if it happens, I'm pretty surprised.
• On a recent ride on the red line, I asked a boisterous flock of eleven-year old boys to simmer down, since I couldn’t hear the punk rock music on my iPod over their cacophony.
• I had to be told both who is Zac Efron as well as the significance of the Indian with one tear.

1. I can’t shake the feeling that in spite of its earth-friendly claims, the manufacturing of the eye cream is what causes the free radicals in the first place. It’s quite the ruthless little racket they've got there.
2. Apparently, I have am attracted to a "type".
3. It’s really fucked up that they don’t tell you that the $12.95 monthly fee to monitor your credit doesn’t get you on the ins with him.

NasaNAVY: 1, Spy Satellite: 0

Dammit, I had fifty bucks riding on the spy satellite.

I have a few questions about this whole brouhaha. The ostensible reason for blowing up the satellite was because if it actually fell to Earth, it would release all kinds of toxic gases, right? But how does blowing it up prevent those toxic gases from being released? Wouldn't it ignite them or help their release? I mean, I'm no scientist, but if gas just kind of disappeared, global warming wouldn't really be a problem, would it? Maybe that's the logic of those who still scoff with the idea that greenhouse gases are no big whoop. That no one really seems to mind the idea that the toxic waste can sleep with the fishies in the Pacific Ocean makes me feel a lot worse that I forgot to buy kitty his kibbles and gave him canned salmon instead.

Speaking of fishy, the whole satellite thing just kind of stinks. No, I'm not one of the homeland security conspiracy theorists who think there were national secrets that would have fallen into the hands of our enemies; I can't even keep track of who our enemies are anymore. I'm just a girl with very mixed feelings on the whole thing.

On the one hand, there's the pricetag attached to the whole business. We're shelling out 10 BILLION dollars a year for a system that seems to be riding a heavy payload to Nowheresville, but I still have to walk every day through a gauntlet of some very hungry looking homeless people. I don't like to walk down dark alleys in DC for fear that I'll be invited to an impromptu urban Donner party. Can we maybe just get $500 bucks out of those billions and hand out some jerky or something?

But on the other hand, I completely fucking love am cool with the idea of blowing things up for no reason other than the fact that we can. And if we can, it stands to reason that we should. Isn't that the Pentagon's mission statement?

But I still can't shake this uneasy feeling I have.

TEN BILLION DOLLARS.

I saw the eclipse last night, and it got me to thinking - how have we dumped ten billion dollars into this program but we still have not blown up the moon? That seems like an egregious violation of the American Way of Life.

You Can Call Me Fancypants

I'm feeling pretty damn special. That's because Barak Obama evidently subscribes to my RSS feed. At least, that's what the internet said. I'll bet he's done something pretty awesome for you, too - check it out.

Newtonian Campaigning

Hahahahaha, here's another funny campaign spoof video, courtesy of many alert Poofygoers!


Wait, what? It's for real? For reals? Oh. Oh, oh my. Poor Hillary. Remember how cool it was when Bill Clinton went on Arsenio with his saxophone? This is the polar opposite end of the cool spectrum. It would seem that this video indicates rather violently that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Hey, at least she couldn't be known as our nation's first cheerleader president.

Extra tip o' the Goo to Dave...

Better Than Diamonds!

Ahhhh, Valentine's Day. This year, celebrate the day designed to guilt your significant other into buying you stuff by just saying no to the Say No To Sugar Daddies campaign. Because if your sweetie can't express his love through consumer goods, it's not really love, is it? And if you think about it, AIDS is the gift that keeps on giving for a lifetime.

Looks Like You Need A Cupcake!

Un Fucking Canny.

A Very Special Bingo Night

We interrupt John McCain's stump speech at the Shady Pines Old Folks home to bring you a very special message about the candidate:

Barack the Vote

Still undecided? Here's the plan.

Listen. (scroll about a third of the page down and click on what Andrew Sullivan has to say - good stuff.)

Read.

Watch.

Cry.

Vote.

Easy!

Let's Go! Let's Go!

The Kennedy Center is featuring a cross-cultural exchange in its Culture + Hyperculture: Japan! Festival. So what's hyperculture? Well, given last night's concert featuring Japanese trio YMCK playing 8-bit instruments (think your original NES) on the Millennium Stage, it's like having a seizure. In a good way.

Nom Nom Nom!

I'm researching some blood terms, and this is by far the most fun animation you will ever see of phagocytosis. Possibly the most fun animation you will see all day. Gahlormp.

Wont' Somebody PLEASE Think of the Children?!

Yeah, there's work to do today. A ridiculous amount of it. A woman from an organization we'll call a very big "bank" that deals with affairs in the "world" emailed wondering if I could answer a few questions about quality of care guidelines in Africa. Oh, funny jokes!

But priorities. The final contestants and guest judge for Project Runway showed up for the Fall 08 Fashion Show in Bryant Park. You should check in. I did. You know, for the kids. With blood diseases. In Africa.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

A Day Later, A Dollar Short

About half of Democratic voters across four large states -- California, New York, Missouri and Georgia -- said the economy was the most important issue facing the country, and voters in the first three of those states favored Sen. Clinton, according to exit polls.

Facing a cash crunch, Hillary Rodham Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million in January and several top staffers are foregoing salaries this month to help her compete with a far better financed Barack Obama.

Would anyone like to have a new vote for Hillary's campaign song?

The Audacity of Mope

Every so often, I'll drop by the Object's office to collect him on our way home or take care of something else equally mundane. It's generally a pleasant affair - the Rawk Goblin sometimes drops by and we have conversations that inevitably make me feel like a smarter person for having engaged in such witty palavering; the Object keeps chocolate and Wasa crackers in his desk drawer and has been known to give me one, and from time to time, someone will pop in and invite all those present to partake in a shot of Maker's Mark. These are the times that I show up after five and can just call the Object to let me in. But on other occasions, I'll have to come by and deal with the shrew they have hired to man their front desk. The first time was the most memorable.

"Excuse me?"

I directed my request to the young woman slumped over her computer, studiously ignoring me despite the fact that she had just buzzed me in the door of her lobby. She looked up at me with a world-weary sigh and snarled a "what" at me. I'd clearly offended her by having the audacity to cut into her Perez Hilton time^1..

"I'm here to see the Object."

WRONG ANSWER - it sent her over the edge. In a huff, she whipped around to her phone, sending fumes of stale cigarette smoke emanating from her stringy hair as she furiously punched in the digits. Barely bothering to conceal her contempt for the whole affair, she seethed into the phone, "Somebody's here for you." She dropped the phone back into its cradle with a clatter and resumed her earth-saving reading.

At first I gave her the benefit of the doubt, supposing that she’d had a bad day or just found out that she was the secret lovechild of Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan, but the pattern persisted - each time I walked in, she would make a strenuous effort to ignore me, then bare her fangs. Finally I asked the Object if I'd inadvertently offended her or worn her rival sorority's colors one too many times. "Nah," he responded, "she's just got a huge chip on her shoulder because she has to do the receptionist work."

"Ummm, isn't that her job?" I asked.

"Well, half of it. She's also here to do research, so she's got a huge chip on her shoulder for having to do the more menial work." My hackles immediately rankled. "Wait, so it was a big surprise to her when they hired her? They didn't tell her she would be doing it? And what the fuck do you mean, ‘menial work’?"

"No, it was her first job out of college; she wants to do something more important, and feels the work is beneath her," he shrugged.

"So she's going to prove to everyone she's capable of doing more by doing nothing and being an asshole on top of it? Doesn't anybody care? What about your co-workers? What about other people who come into the office?"

"They complain about her all the time, and outside people have complained about it too. But nobody really knows what to do. What do you want me to say? 'Sorry your job is shitty, but could you do a less shitty job of it?' It's just not my place, and I don’t want her to get mad at me." The Object seemed nonplussed, disinterested in the whole affair, which rankled me even more. Then he dropped a bombshell, "We're actually interviewing her for a promotion; she might be working with me on my treesmooching stuff."

I lost it. "What are you going to do when you're in a Senator's office fighting for some bill and she gets all snotty and you get kicked out of Earl Blumenauer's office? And what are you going to do when you ask her to work on your legislative proposal and she blows it off because it's menial?” Inexplicably, the Object started to stick up for her. “Maybe she just hasn’t had a chance to prove her skills. All she does is sit there and answer the phone.”

The attitude that a receptionist – or any person in administrative position - lacks skills is one that's been advanced by people who don't know the work involved, so they treat the receptionist as though she’d just asked if they want fries with that. As one of the few people in my organization with the nebulous term "administrative" in my job title, I've suffered disdain at the hands of coworkers who seem to think I'm little more than an overglorified secretary, here to get invoices signed and fetch coffee - no matter that those tasks have nothing to do with my work on international programs. It doesn’t matter that about 85% of the people in my organization are in a so-called administrative capacity, slapping on the term administrative carries a stigma that people seem to think gives them carte blanche to act like a condescending asshole^2..

A receptionist is not unlike a waiter in that it's a service job. Plenty of talented people have made an excellent career (and money) out of it, using a high level of organization, business savvy and people skills. My colleague who serves as our Receptionist/Office can juggle a five phone lines, three delivery guys, seven snippy staffers, and a partridge in a pear tree from our vendors - all while working to secure a contract with an international shipping courier, saving me literally tens of thousands of dollars in my budget. She commands respect through her professionalism.

But the hussy at the Object’s office wasn’t doing herself any favors. I’ll grant that not everyone’s dream is to graduate college and work as a career receptionist, fine. But while she was ostensibly rotting away in the Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar and Grille of jobs, she missed a huge opportunity to scheme and work her way up. This is Washington, DC, Land of the Overly Ambitious Overachiever! Work it! As the first point of contact for anyone coming into her office, she could have taken advantage of her unique position: making contacts with key players, learning more about the machinations of the environmental movement^3., forging relationships with staff and using her capacity to make the whole place run better. Instead, she wallowed in her misery and took everyone else down with her. Who wouldn’t think someone so spectacularly surly and dispassionate didn’t have much worthwhile work to do?

Our paths have crossed well over a dozen times and not once has she deigned to acknowledge me in a manner that doesn’t convey how pissed off she is about her station in life. I was incensed when I found out that the Object and his colleagues had decided to give her the promotion. “Have fun getting kicked out of Senators' offices,” I sulked. Apparently, he’d sold him in the interview the Object in the interview; he rhapsodized about the turning of a new leaf, “No, I really think she’ll be good. She was so overjoyed when we offered her the position and said she promises we won’t regret it. I’ll start working with her as soon as they hire her replacement in a month or two.”

A few days after that conversation, the Object asked me to stop by his office to pick something up. No one was at the door, so I went to grab my phone to call the Object to let me in. I was fumbling awkwardly to balance grocery bags, tote bags, winter paraphernalia, and a phone when who should waltz right past me but the recently-promoted underkind herself? Before I could drop everything to get her attention, she was already on the other side of the door, which locked as it closed behind her. I rang the bell. She let me in, and then proceeded as usual, studiouly ignoring me.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

Without looking up, she sighed. “Whaddaya want?”

I did not congratulate her on her promotion.

1. I'm sure that in her capacity as the receptionist for the Object's environmental organization she needs to be in-the-know on the latest Britney news. You know, for the drowning polar bears and the melting ice caps and whatnot.
2. The worst offenders are inevitably middle-aged men and recent college grads who refer to any administrator as a secretary.

3. A soap opera rivalling anything on t.v. Including American Gladiators.

I Swear I'm Going Somewhere With This

There are some of us out there who could stand to watch this edutainmental video on not being a complete hosebeast to the peoples who walk in the door of your organization. Watch now, and let's all come back and discuss a little later.

Is Your Tuesday Super or Fat?

On Soooooper Doooooper Tuesday- or any major national election day- one can lose faith in the US of A just as easily as one can gain a new hope. Today I hope to present a point/counterpoint to allow you to gain better insight on whether you should be pumping a fist or flipping a bird for amber waves, mountains majesty, and New Jersey turnpike.

Point: Fuck America!

Everyone else thinks we're stupid, because sometimes we act pretty stupid:

Counterpoint: America, Fuck Yeah!

We can pull together as one to perform mass acts of no-pantsing and other assorted prankeries:

Fatty McButterpantsTuesday

Last night I saw a commercial announcing that a product called "water" was not good for you because it had 160 calories in a bottle. I was so pleased - until they started shilling another product they referred to as a healthier "water" since it had only 25 calories in a bottle.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAURGH!

Let me spell this out clearly, O Makers and Purveyors of Water:

WATER DOES NOT HAVE CALORIES.

It is sick, twisted, irresponsible, and just plain mean to put a SOFT DRINK on the market and tout it as healthy water. And to do so in a nation where two-thirds of people are overweight is beyond fucked up; it's sociopathic. The product you a marketing is a no more water than Kraft Singles are cheese. You are selling FAKE NON-WATER PRODUCT.

Every single fuckwad that went into the creation and marketing of Fake Non-Water Product, and every single fat cat now reaping a profit on Fake Non-Water Product should be forced to gain fifty pounds and then have to lose it without any help from nutritionists, dieticians trainers, pills, surgery or any other dieting assistance. They should have to lose the weight while enjoying only their product to quaff their thirst. And they should have to do it with a cadre of older brother/family asshole types who ask you if you're "porking up" any time he or she approaches a refrigerator.

As for you the rest of you, America, if you're going to be getting fat by drinking beverages with dubious claims to health, it had goddamn well better be because you're practicing for the milk bet.

Winter in the City

One might be tempted to think spring is here, what with the joyous goings-on in the neighborhood. In the span of just a few short hours, I experienced:

• Latinos con Obama parade going up the street
• Latinos con Obama parade going back down the street, having picked up a Chicano band along the way
• Impromptu Hare Krishna parade, complete with gong
• Major traffic jam, the source of which involved a teenager and an official from the DC Department of Transportation who had parked in the middle of Columbia Road. I presume the dispute was over the content of the youngster's t-shirt, which featured a yellow road sign announcing "I stop for pimps"; telling "Gs" to kindly step left and "Hos"to kindly veer to the right. I'd always been under the impression that gs were to step down, whereas hos were to step up, and I'm sure the DDOT administrator was working feverishly to correct the mistake.
  

When I saw Li'l Robin Redbreast on a Sunday afternoon jaunt to take full advantage of the fifty+ degree weather, I was sure that fall (which I kinda skipped to begin with) had skipped winter completely and gone on directly to spring. But then Li'l Robin Redbreast took a not so li'l shit all over the place and promptly flew off, leaving me feeling a little less certain about the future of spring.

Stuck In The Middle

Lately at work I've been feeling increasingly caught between two opposing forces dictating the terms of my career, leaving me stranded in the middle to become lunch. And so today, I present the Battle at Kruger in the hopes that in the not-so-epic battle of my life, the naive underdog might figure out what the hell to do and win out in the end.

(N.B. You should stick with the video 'till the end to reap the reward.)