I’m having a sleepover tonight!

A good friend of mine is going through some rough spots in her life right now, so she’s coming to spend the night at the Kitty Den.  We have grand, ambitious plans to go to the Kitty Den Gym (to earn our wine!) before sitting around munching veggies and catching up on girl talk.  She’s trying to lose weight and I’m trying to lose a bit myself, so I spent an hour last night chopping up baby bok choy for stir fry and cucumbers and celery to join the grape tomatoes, carrots and broccoli for delicious Fat-Free-Ranch dipping.  (I know.  My culinary skills are several orders of magnitude short of , say, Rachel Ray.  Whatever.)

*Side note: I don’t need to lose any weight for the wedding, but I swear if I gain even an ounce I won’t be able to breathe in my dress.  I’ve thus been getting back into running — I can now go 1.5 miles before I have to stop for a breather, and I usually do another two miles alternating jogging and walking.  What’s interesting is that I find jogging easier nowadays then I did when I was a hardcore Track-and-Fielder back in high school; I was a pure sprinter and specialized in 100-meter races (the high hurdles and the 4X100).  Now that I’m trying to jog on a regular basis, the concept of pawback makes my life a lot easier.  /side note

I’m not doing a hardcore Jay G-type dietary regimen, just trying to eat more veggies and less carbs.  Most of the day it works okay — I pack a lot more FOOD for lunch than I used to, because it’s stuff like salad and reduced-fat string cheese and pickles and fat-free yogurt, rather than a simple-but-high-carb sandwich. 

BUT.

Once I get home, I have to run the Gauntlet of Doom.

You can only access the second floor by using the elevators (the staircases don’t have key access from the ground floor).  And almost every day the little side table by the elevators boasts a delectable buttery plate of COOKIES.  SUGAR COOKIES.  OR OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES.  And I just want to DIVE IN.  I WANT TO GO TO COOKIELAND AND ROLL AROUND IN DOUGH.

If you were to make an artistic rendering of my intense hedonistic desire at that moment, it would look something like this:

GET THEE BEHIND ME, COOKIES!!!

That is all 🙂

P.S. Don’t worry, Rajah’s not allowed to really eat pudding; I thoroughly scrape it out with a spoon before I let him lick the tiny scraps that remain.

All power to the virgin proletariat!

I pass this ad in South Station every morning:

Even aside from the distasteful Marxist-revolutionary imagery, whose brilliant idea was it to juxtapose “virgin” with fists?

And as for the “ALL AIRLINES ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL” line — well, if it’s meant to invoke Animal Farm, shouldn’t the designer be aware that Orwell wrote the book as a condemnation of Marxism-Leninism?

Or am I reading too much into this?

Four legs good, two legs bad!  BAA!!!

More free swag for politicians

And I am completely, totally in favor of it:

A Madison biotech company is offering what it is calling a mental stimulus package to government officials who forget to pay their taxes.

Quincy Bioscience will provide free bottles of its flagship brain-enhancing supplement, Prevagen, to any member of Congress or the Obama administration who has forgotten to pay taxes during the last 10 years, the company said Tuesday.

“We’re confident that after 30 to 60 days of taking the supplement, most legislators and government officials will recall, without being reminded by aides or reporters, all tax periods for which they have forgotten to pay state or federal income taxes,” Quincy Bioscience President Mark Underwood said in a news release.

Prevagen is so effective it also should help most government officials recall when they failed to make Social Security and Medicare contributions for undocumented household workers, Underwood said.

Forget Bob Dole doing Viagra, I want to see Tom Daschle, Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner doing ads for Prevagen!! 

(h/t Michelle)

(P.S.  I listed Daschle, Rangel and Geithner because they are listed in the article and easily spring to mind, but I’m sure there are a bunch of Republican politicians who could use a dose as well.  Specter, Collins and Snowe might actually recall to which party they belong!)

I never thought I would see the day . . .

 . . . when I disagreed with Thomas Sowell:

Although, in some sense, the United States of America is still the strongest nation on earth militarily, that means absolutely nothing if our enemies are willing to die and we are not.

It took only two nuclear bombs to get Japan to surrender — and the Japanese of that era were far tougher than most Americans today. Just one bomb — dropped on New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles — might be enough to get us to surrender.

If we are still made of sterner stuff than it looks like, then it might take two or maybe even three or four nuclear bombs, but we will surrender.

It doesn’t matter if we retaliate and kill millions of innocent Iranian civilians — at least it will not matter to the fanatics in charge of Iran or the fanatics in charge of the international terrorist organizations that Iran supplies.

Ultimately, it all comes down to who is willing to die and who is not.

In my very humble opinion, The Great Sowell is wrong on two counts:

1) There is a whole host of Americans who ARE willing to die for our beliefs.  (See, e.g., the entire U.S. Armed Forces.)  There are many more who would be willing to die to protect their family and their freedoms from an encroacher.  (See, for example, everyone who believes in Molon Labe.) 

2) The Sleeping Giant?  Still in existence, baby.  America might be sleeping more heavily nowadays — hell, close to comatose, drugged into insensibility by too much pie ‘n’ punch — but she’s still a giant, nonetheless. 

I pray that we never have to put this to the test.  I fervently hope that our friends the Israelis will clean up the Iranian situation and save our butts.  But if, God (and the Goddess and Buddha and Allah and Shiva, etc.) forbid, a nuclear bomb ever takes out one of our cities — then the gloves are coming all the way off like you’d better believe.

If we used our military assets ruthlessly — as I think would be in the case when responding to a nuclear attack — you think we couldn’t flatten any country who flipped an ICBM our way?

You think we wouldn’t?

It’s also my very humble opinion that the current leadership in Washington is more, not less, likely to respond to a nuclear provocation by completely annihilating the ten square miles surrounding the leaders’ compound.  Whereas John McCain saw first-hand, for several years, the horror of war, Barack Obama has not.  I picture him more along the lines of President Fowler in The Sum of All Fears— knowing that he has messed up, he is desperate to avenge the blow to his pride and his country.  Furthermore, while McCain responding to a nuclear attack in kind would have ignited a firestorm of controversy and McCain Derangement Syndrome, I think Obama is more likely to win support from both sides of the spectrum — those on the Right who believe in defending our country, as well as those on the Left who are suddenly proud to be an American again.

As I said, I never thought I’d disagree with Thomas Sowell, but there you go.  Your mileage may vary.  And, for the record, I REALLY hope we never have to find out which one of us is right.

Balloon animals gone wrong

I’m sleepy, cold and just a bit cranky, so I’m posting something that made me giggle hysterically.  It’s crude, in poor taste, and not really safe for work.  Enjoy 🙂

(got it from my sister)

Guess he really needed to change his status

Sheriff’s officers said a 19-year-old man snatched a Starbuckscustomers laptop after being told he could not use it to check his Facebook account. According to officers, the man then grabbed the customer’s laptop and ran out of the coffee shop, located in an outlet mall.

Clearly, computers are evil and cause crime.  Or is it Facebook that’s evil?  Now there’s a definitely possibility . . .

Quote of the Day

Gina: Social historians concede that civilization arose and prospered from men accomplishing things to impress — and thus to bed — women. And it turns out that women can be impressed and beddedby all varieties of complicated things, such as the writing of great poetry, the designing of timelessly beautiful buildings, the discovery of penicillin. Imagine what civilization would be like if it had to arise from women impressing men.

Gene: I’m trying.

Gina: I’ll help you out. The single great accomplishment of civilization to date — probably developed during the Middle Ages — would be the boob job.

And guns, Gina.  Lots and lots of guns. 

(h/t Hot Air Headlines)

A treatise on female toilet etiquette

I imagine that, to male readers, a female public bathroom seems like an oasis of gentility.  Full of delicate, floral scents, with velvet couches and gilt-framed mirrors — not to mention the occasional amorous lesbian couple — most men can only dream of the powder-puff comfort and rich opulence exuded by a Women’s Restroom.

I hate to tell you guys this, but if that’s what you’re picturing then you’ve watched too many bad pornos.

Most women’s bathrooms are just like men’s bathrooms — just subtract the urinals. 

Okay, okay, you can also subtract some of the urine from the floor.  Now we’re all up to speed on accuracy.

But — and herein lies the impetus behind my blog post — you only get to subtract SOME of the pee from the tiles.

Because, you see, there are several methods for female liquid waste expulsion:

1) Wipe the toilet seat with toilet paper and sit down.  You get an occasional spasm of disgust if your butt hits thoroughly-warmed plastic, but nothing worse.

2) Lay down the nice disposable paper toilet-seat-cover and sit down.  Seems like the cleanest method, but if the person before you left some spatters, well, that paper is going to cling to your butt.  Not the most pleasant of feelings, let alone when the pee isn’t yours.

3) Wipe the toilet seat with toilet paper BEFORE using the paper toilet-seat-cover and sit down.  You are assured of a clean and dry sitting surface.  Hooray!  As long as you can square the double-paper-use with Mother Gaia, you’re golden.  (Paging Sherryl Crow . . . )

4) The Toilet Squat: Exercising your hamstrings, quads, and gluts, hover over the toilet seat as you do your business.  No filthy public plastic shalt touch thy nether regions!

And it is with the proponents of Method 4 that I have some serious scatological issues.

You see, at Ye Olde Financial Company we have a Serial Squatter who . . . misses.

Oh come now, Lissa, you say, do you expect a female to have the same sniper accuracy as a male?  She doesn’t have the anatomy for it!

That’s not the effing issue, I reply hotly.  It would be fine if she would just WIPE UP HER ***DAMNED MESS!

And it’s not on the toilet SEAT where she leaves her spatters, oh no.  That would be too easy, too visible, too simple to avoid.  Instead, I walk into the toilet stall and there are droplets of pee dripping down the front of the mother-f***cking toilet.

How bad does your aim need to be to get urine down the FRONT of the toilet?  How can you not freaking NOTICE that you are peeing down the FRONT SURFACE of a public potty and NOT WIPE IT UP???

Thanks to Ms. Serial Squatter, I have adopted the habit of automatically hitching up my skirt as I walk into the stall.  Lest the hem come into contact with the pee droplets hovering at knee height.

One of these days, I’m going to catch her, y’all.  And I’m going to force her to write the following lines exactly 3,560,295 times:

My bodily fluids are not drops of manna from heaven and I will not leave them behind like pearls of wisdom.  And also, I suck and everyone hates me. 

B*tch.

P.S. According to Johnny Virgil, men encounter the same problem:

This can be a recipe for disaster.

Why? Let me tell you. Because this urinal is square in front. This means that the two corners of the urinal are fairly close to your legs. As a result, you’re only one bad pantleg-crease away from inadvertently contacting the stagnant piss pond on that ledge, which will instantly wick into your pants like they were made entirely of Bounty paper towels. At that point you have two choices: (1) Walk around the rest of the day with someone else’s pee staining your pants, or (2) grab a giant handful of wet paper towels and — in an effort to avoid simply tearing off your pants and running outside and rolling around in a snowbank — rub frantically at the pee stains until you make yourself look like you just drained your bladder directly into your Dockers.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

Yes, I still get a kick out of toilet humor.  Sue me.

UPDATE: BorePatch linked.  Thanks!

UPDATE: TamLanche!  Thanks!

Things Mike Likes

Thank you everyone who has asked about or passed on good wishes for Mike; he’s recovering well, taking Tylenol during the day and a Percocet before sleep.  I am HEROICALLY resisting chances to mess with him while he’s all sleepy and dopey, but it ain’t easy sometimes.  So as to avoid temptation, I shall channel my energies into cheering him up instead.

Three things that Mike likes:

1) 30 Rock.  We watched an episode last week in which Kenneth the Page Boy fell in love with a blind woman, and I swear I thought Mike was going to bust a gut when the hot blind girl said, “This just feels right.  And my instincts have never let me down!  Except for looking in that eclipse!”  (Skip ahead to 5:30) 

2) Smartasses.  (But he loves me, so you knew that!)  We went out to dinner last Friday for Valentine’s and brought our own centerpiece.  (Well, you didn’t expect me to leave it at work, did you?)  As we debark from the Green Line we pass some young guy and his girl; he eyes my blossoms and says sincerely, “Nice flowers!” 

“Why, thanks!” I beam back.

And as Mike passes behind me, the guy gives him an aw-yeah nod and says knowingly, “Nice job!”

3) Last and not least —  яolCats!!!  Now, if LolCatz do nothing for you this will probably leave you cold, but I offer a sampling for your delectation:

Drat, thwarted so close to freedom’s sweet caress… I dreamed for but a taste of the decadent west, and now my eulogy is sung by guard dogs and alarm bells

Aaaaah… Pig iron, your musk is that of glorious industry …

 

This shall provide the nourishment needed to brave the crowds awaiting their weekly beetroot ration.

Feel better, sweetie!!

This one’s for Breda

I know, I know, I promised all these updates and posts yesterday and never got around to them.  But I didn’t anticipate that we’d have to wait three hours before the surgery!  And I didn’t think it would take another four hours before we could leave!  Instead of taking about three hours, as I thought, we were there from 9 AM to 4:30 PM.  Ugh!  (I know, I know.  I’m lucky it was minor.  I’m lucky he had access to good and quick medical care.  I’m aware that I’m impotently b*tching and kvetching, I swear.)

Since I’m already behind on blogging, let alone promised posts, I humbly beg your pardon and offer you some Ziva (you may need to turn up the volume):

UPDATE: Breda linked.  Thanks!  (And the first time I typed it I wrote “Ziva linked.”  I doubt Breda minds the mix-up!)

UPDATE: The Rustmeister linked.  Thanks!