This is why I'm never bored

I can read my diary from 8th grade, which I found in a box this weekend, and be endlessly amused by the points it proves. Some examples.

Proof that middle school girls are pretty much all the same:

January 12, 1992

"I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer). I love (insert name of boy who is probably now a mass murderer)."

Note: This goes on for a whole page.

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March 13, 1992

"I can't believe my boyfriend who is a moron was mad just because I danced with this other boy four times and not him."

Yeah, that's a shocker. How unreasonable of him. Also: It's clear I felt very connected with this boy whom I referred to as "boyfriend who is a moron."

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July 5, 1992

"I am so sick of how (insert name of perfectly nice boy who is probably now a CEO) 'The Dweeb' loves and worships me. And I had to dance with him at the 8th grade party! Yuck! I think he might be starting to get the idea that I think he's a dork. At least I hope."

The directness of 8th graders in resolving conflict, as well as their relationship skills, is awe-inspiring.

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March 8, 1992

"Okay, this is serious. My friends liked this $30 Gitano outfit that totally clashed!"

What the hell is Gitano? Apparently it's SERIOUS.

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March 30, 1992

"I finally got lots of hair off my legs when I shaved! Hooray!"

It's really the small victories in life, isn't it?

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The entry for July 6, 1992 is an essay called "Why My Little Brother is a Stupid Jerk."

Sorry, darling brother who still has a nickname I made up for you in 9th grade that means the same thing as the word "shit." Loves you!

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Proof that the 90s were, in general, a little scary:

March 16, 1992

"Must close now. David Robinson and John Lucas are on Aresnio tonight!"

Note: I watched the Aresnio Hall Show?

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July 5, 1992

"Warm it up, Kris! Kris Kross is awesome. Almost as good as Color Me Badd."

Sweet Jesus. There are no words.

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Proof that I haven't really changed all that much:

November 2, 1992

"Oh my gosh, I saw Al [Gore] at the Waterloo airport! One day until the election! I'm so excited! If Bill and Al don't win I will just die of sadness. And oh my gosh Al Gore is SO HOT. I love Al! LOVE HIM!"

I believe I am technically now in 9th grade writing this. Not that it matters; I think I still write the same way about Al Gore. Sigh.

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July 7, 1992

"I just feel like writing and writing and writing and never stopping. But I will since this is probably majorly boring to read."

At least I had self awareness, even though I still haven't stopped torturing people with my boring and never-ending words.

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February 5, 1992

"I guess SOMEONE has to be on the C team. But why me?"

I never magically gained that athletic prowess I had been hoping for. But not my fault, remember? My fingers!

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April 25, 1992

"Happy Arbor Day, Diary! Plant a tree! Cool the globe!"

Once a tree-hugger, always a tree hugger. Also, I don't remember wanting to cool the globe being a controversial viewpoint them. Go figure.

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June 22, 1993

"I have this pen pal who I met at the Big 8 Tournament. He's really cute, but UGH I can't believe he's a JAYHAWK!"

What IS the matter with Kansas?

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In the entry for April 19, I circled my own grammatical error and wrote "please pardon the illegibility of this missive."

No comment.

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Coming soon (I hope): Actual excerpts from my 4th grade diary, which I also found yesterday but didn't take the time to try and break into. (Unlike the eighth grade diary which has a combination lock on it that can be opened by remembering the combination "grab both covers and pull really hard for 15 seconds," this one has a padlock that has to be opened with a key that no longer exists -- I'm thinking throwing a really large rock at it will probably do the trick.)

Stay tuned.

Why drinking and being "single" for the weekend don't mix

And no, it's not the reason you're thinking. So stop it!

As I believe I may have mentioned before, I'm more than a little naive. I am pretty sure if I were an actual single person going to bars to try and meet other single people I would have been stabbed to death in a dark alley by now.

So Friday night while my husband was out of town I was looking forward to having a few drinks with some friends at a local dive bar, where one of the friends wanted to meet up with her other friend who was paying his way through college by deep-frying cauliflower there. Over the course of a couple of hours I proceeded to plow my way through several glasses of beer. I returned from the restroom, weaving my way inefficiently through several local class reunion participants in nametags (ever grateful that I was not one of them) and sat back down at our table, where within a few moments a blond gentleman plopped down in the seat next to me.

I figured he was the cook friend we were meeting, so I started willingly participating in the conversation he started with me. I honestly don't remember anything we were discussing except that he said something flippant about someone who was bald, to which I replied...

Me: Hey, my husband is bald and I think it looks rather attractive on him.
Guy: Husband?
Me: Yeah, my husband Ben.
Guy: You're married? MARRIED? Oh, well THAT'S JUST GREAT.
Me (duh): Yes, it is great.
Guy (leaving half a pack of Pall Malls and a Bic lighter on the table): I'll be right back, okay?
Me: Um...
My friend, leaning over: Why were you talking to that guy?
Me: What do you mean? I thought he was your friend!
My friend: Erm, no...

It's at this point that I finally realized that even though I was clearly wearing a wedding ring this guy was trying to pick me up. See why I could never be a single person?

The more I added up the pieces the more I realized that this guy was an A-1 jerk, so I brilliantly decided to get back at him by smoking all of his Pall Malls. See what fabulous decision-making skills drunk people have?

I didn't finish the pack, but it somehow ended up in my purse and subsequently on my kitchen table the next morning, where my mother saw it upon arriving at my house for a day visit. "When did you take up smoking?" she asked. "Pall Malls! Ew!" So I told her the story. She smoked for 30 years, she said, and could never stomach anything as strong as Pall Malls.

Sweet merciful crap, help me! Coffee and a traecheotomy, please! And let's not forget a shower!

How old am I again? Never mind, don't answer that.

Sacrificial Gams

Call me a cynic, but "Kate! YOU have nice legs!" is a suspicious beginning to a conversation. Yet, so began the crackly cell phone conversation I had with my co-worker this afternoon.

It turns out I was correct to be skeptical, and -- long story short -- you may now add "stand half-naked in front of God and everyone, including a photographer," to the list of Things I Have Done To Be a Team Player at Work (right after getting mugged by geese, buying every basketball-hoop-shaped kids' wastebasket in stock at four greater Iowa K-Marts, and standing in street sludge in front of Minneapolis' Target Center while people asked me if I was an American Idol contestant).

Okay, perhaps making the long story short is ineffective in conveying the Oh-My-God-I'm-Freaked-Out-ness of the phone call, which was precipitated by the refusal of multiple co-workers to model a nightshirt and fuzzy slippers for our merchandise catalog, most likely because the outfit: a) is ridiculous; and b) involves wearing no pants.

I should actually add that, if you need someone who isn't afraid to go pantless in front of a camera, I may be a good option. Our family's photo albums are filled with images of me as a youngster, wearing only a shirt and underpants, sitting at family gatherings, watching Sesame Street, writing and illustrating my collections of short fiction/plans for world domination, etc. It's true: I ritualistically shed my pants the minute I walked through the door for many of my single-digit years. Not sure when this became uncouth and inappropriate (probably two years before I stopped doing it), but I'm afraid to say that most of my adult years have been spent rather boringly wearing pants almost all the time.

So in order to complete this assignment I was going to have to rediscover the spirit of my half-naked inner child.

I retreated to the restroom and put on the nightshirt and the fuzzy slippers. I looked, well, ridiculous. But I was taking one for the team. Boldly going where no person in her right mind has ever gone before. Wearing no pants in front of my co-workers. Wearing no pants in front of the camera...

I am not a model. Heck, I'm not even really that much of a girl. When I was frantically trying to put on some makeup before heading over to the photo shoot, another co-worker offered me the use of her some-kinda-special comb. "What do I do with that?" I replied. She giggled. I think she thought I was kidding. "Hey, at least you're wearing earrings today," another helpfully chimed in. Yes, it's a special day at our office when Kate remembers to accessorize. Alert the media! She's wearing a belt AND a bracelet!

Everything I know about modeling I learned from Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model. This means that the extent of my knowledge about good modeling is that I know it involves reading Tyra Mail and being something called "fierce." I tried to think about being "fierce" in the nightshirt and slippers, but it just wasn't coming to the surface. The photographer didn't like my idea of channeling every men's underwear model I've ever seen and doing the "Look! A tree!" finger-point. So they handed me props: a coffee mug and a newspaper. Apparently instead of being fierce I was supposed to pretend I had just woken up and started reading the paper when someone pointed a camera in my face. In a fierce manner, of course. "Ooh, I'm so surprised that you are taking a picture of me while I'm wearing my nightgown and reading the paper," is apparently the message we were trying to convey, artistically.

And when art involves wearing an oversized T-shirt, no pants, and ridiculous slippers while not pointing at a fake tree, I'm just clay to be molded. Molded into a tan-legged frump to be plastered on catalogs and the innernets. Victoria's Secret, you may want to send your scouts to check me out. Just don't ask me how to use an eyelash curler or be fierce. Because I don't know.

Trying to ford a river of Pabst Blue Ribbon

So it was over a month ago that I went to Portland, but I still haven't written anything about the experience. Not exactly sure what has been the cause of my writer's block, but rest assured that I always inevitably find the temptation to deliver verbose blow-by-blow accounts of my vacations too overwhelming to stand. The level of detail in which I documented our trip to Aruba four years ago, for example, should serve as proof of this phenomenon. In other words: Never question my commitment to being a giant geek.

Okay, so Oregon.
First let me say that if it weren't quite so many miles from the UMW I would move to Portland in a heartbeat. I have always had a fascination with the Pacific Northwest (stemming from my religious devotion to watching Twin Peaks as an adolescent, perhaps?), and this satiated my desire to spend a good bit of time there in a way that my New Year's 2003 trip to Boise did not.

My friend since junior high who was also my roommate during freshman year of college, Winnie, was kind enough to play host to us. She has a cute house, an even cuter puppy, and a cute ex-chef husband who vaguely resembles Justin Timberlake and currently makes a living harvesting barn owl pellets in scary ghost-town looking places down south. Seriously.

I'm a pretty big fan of athletic apparel, so it was a pretty cool thing that Winnie works for Nike. We got a tour of the campus and a pass to shop at the employee store, where we spent $750 on $1,500 worth of stuff in the course of an afternoon. But hooray! Sports bras for life! Also: Shoes! When we visited the Nike campus, we avoided parking in Michael Jordan's parking spot. Apparently it's not really reserved for Michael Jordan, though, Winnie informed us. Um, we're gullible Iowa hicks. Haven't you heard?

On our first night in Portland, we went to dinner at a fantastic Thai restaurant and then to the Last Thursday festival on Alberta Street. It's basically like an art festival where all of Portland's most interesting characters come out to play -- unicycle riders, the performance artists at the "clown house," random ranters, ravers, painters, and musicians. Despite the perponderance of junk of everywhere, it's really cool, actually. We made our way to the lawn of an Alberta Street drinking establishment, where I snapped this incredibly flattering but oh-so-funny picture of Win drinking a can of PBR (which, apparently, is the official canned beverage of the Greater Portland Area):



Two significant things happened after I took this photo:

1) A woman squatted down and peed in the lawn in front of approximately 400 people, including my husband...who couldn't quite wash the perplexed look off his face for the rest of the night after witnessing this event and urging the rest of our group to steer clear of the puddle.

2) A riot, apparently, broke out on Alberta Street. At least according to this blog.

The next day was all about checking out the city. Winnie decided the best way to do this was to ride on the controversial sky tram up to the Oregon Health & Science University, which has a great view of the city and even, on a clear day, Mt. Hood. I say the tram was controversial because it takes you right over people's houses. The houses of people who protested its construction, lost the battle, and now keep their curtains permanently drawn. You really could see right into the houses were they not, so I can see why they were unhappy. We were easily the youngest people on the tram, and we did resist the temptation to visit the hospital gift shop at the top of the hill despite the urgings of the tram operator.

Later that day we went up in the west hills and visited the rose garden. We thought this was a good place to take a prom picture. So we did:


Instead of a wrist corsage, Kate is sporting a Nike handbag purchased at a rock-bottom warehouse price!

They also had some viewers that cost a quarter. Which we didn't have. So we used the opportunity to take another stupid picture.


Hey! It's another stupid picture! It must be Kate and Ben's vacation.

The next major highlight of the visit was our day trip to the coast. It is GORGEOUS. See photographic evidence of gorgeousness below:



Winnie knew of a semi-secluded beach we would enjoy that was only a short hike away, so we took the dog and headed down to the shore, where we were apparently so overcome with rapture over seeing the ocean that we decided to mess around like total dumbasses, which to me makes for a perfectly awesome time. Winnie and I tried to get out modeling careers off the ground by practicing some sexy butt poses on the beach, but really Maya the dog was better than we:

Sexy bitches. Literally.
I also have to admit I was a bit surprised how many sufers were hanging out...er, hanging ten...at this particular beach. It was really not warm. And the water was really, really not warm. And I really, really, really don't know my surfer lingo, as I believe my exact quote was "Let's hang some ten." I am not sure that "ten" is an adjustable quantity in that sense. I believe if you were hanging some ten, it would just mean you were hanging eight or six-and-a-half or Pi or something like that. Hey, I'm from Iowa.
But man, did we have fun at that beach. It's good for the soul to see the ocean for those of us who are locked between the Missouri and Mississippi. And they had saltwater taffy and fish n' chips and rock formations and look! They have waterfalls!

Speaking of waterfalls, the next day was cool because we spent it hiking near the Columbia River Gorge, which is phe-nom-e-nal.


I mean, look.
Multnomah Falls was really cool, but there were also lots of people there. So Winnie took us over to the Horsetail Falls Trail, which was a pretty easy hike with very few tourists and lots of great scenery. Like this:



As is true with anything related to me going on a vacation, we goofed around. Here's a botched attempt at a photo of Winne holding the waterfall in her hand while I look surprised in the background:


The hike was definitely worth it, as the top of the trail netted us a great view of the Columbia River.


This is all, f'real, like 20 minutes in a Subaru from Winnie's house. And when I say Subaru, I mean Subaru. There is an unofficial Portland city ordinance, apparently, which states that you must own a Subaru and a dog to live there. And when you're cruising around in your Subaru with your life partner wearing your Columbia or Nike or Adidas athletics gear, you must have the dog in the back of the car. And have your radio tuned to Q97.9 FM all the time, so you can hear Mims' highly musical song, "This is Why I'm Hot," every 10 minutes. Okay, don't do that last part. But you can!
This left one adventure before we could leave: driving up to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood.

Coming to your hood
And wow -- Timberline Lodge is the hotel they used for the exterior shots in the movie The Shining. A movie that scared the pee out of me. And it was a little creepy seeing it, even though there are no snow tunnels or psychotic killers or Here's Johnny but rather just a bunch of caffienated Oregonians with their snowboards.

And a ski lift. And a massive parking lot. With Subarus.
We had a hot alcoholic beverage inside and then tromped through the snow on the side of the mountain. And who can resist an April snowball fight in 60-degree weather? Certainly not me.

I'm a really bad over-actor.
So there you have it: Go to Portland. You will not regret it. There are so many things to do, including the ones mentioned here plus also locking your keys in your rental car, golfing, purchasing Columbia jackets sales-tax free, pointing out electrical wiring inadequacies in art galleries, eating candy, thrift store shopping, and going out for breakfast like every day. Oh, and Chai! Real Oregon Chai...take that, Starbucks evil-doers.
Raising a can of PBR in thanks to my Portland friends,
That Weird Girl from Iowa

An update on the international state of geese muggers

I'm not the only one!

I peed my pants a little laughing at this.

If you're a Pearl Jam fan, this is must-see YouTube:

For what it's worth, these are the actual lyrics to Yellow Ledbetter:

Unsealed
On a porch a letter sat
Then you said I wanna leave it again
Once I saw her on a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand I wanna leave it again...yeah
On a weekend I wanna wish it all away yeah...
And they called and I said that I want what I said
And then I call out again
And the reason oughta leave her calm I know
I said I don't know whetherI'm the boxer or the bag
Ah yeah ehh....
Can you see themOut on the porch
But they don't wave
I see them round the front way yeah
And I know I don't want to stay...

Make me cry

Ooooh I see
I don't know there's something else
I wanna drum it all away
Oh I said I don't, I don't know whether I'm a boxer or the bag
Ah yeah ehh....
Can you see them
Out on the porch
But they don't wave
I see them round the front way yeah
And I know I don't want to stay
I don't wanna stay
I don't wanna stay
Don't Don't wanna
Oh... yeah... oooh...

So I got mugged by some geese. What?

One of the things I like most about my job is that I never know what to expect. So this week, when I was asked to participate in the "we love Iowa State's campus swans, Lancelot and Elaine" video shoot for the university's sesquicentennial traditions video, I didn't know what to expect.

I will say my track record with this particular video is perhaps not the best. At the shoot for the first segment, in which I assisted but was mercifully not on camera, I fell down in the parking lot. So there's that.

But that was over a month ago, and I arrived at the set (Lake LaVerne) Tuesday ready to rock and roll with a fresh new confidence in my upright, sober walking abilities.

My co-worker/co-star and I were told that our first order of business was to round up the swans, who were hanging out in a corner of the lake (okay, it's a pond that is ridiculously named "Lake," but whatever) that didn't necessarily have the most aesthetically pleasing background, namely a construction site and a busy intersection. That's where I'd be if I were a swan, too. There are probably hunks of rotten gordita tossed out the car window by college students two months ago, or the remnants of Ring-Dings that were eaten on the construction site, worth munching (Elegantly munching, of course, because Hey! You're a swan. Everything you do is elegant! Even snarfing garbage off the curb!). But we had a whole bag of moldy wheat bread, so we knew we could entice them over by the tranquil and much-more-video-worthy park bench area.

And it worked. We congratulated ourselves on successfully positioning the swans for the video and were about to chill on the park bench when all hell broke loose. Two Canadian geese came seemingly out of nowhere and swooped down to scare the swans away and claim the bread. The geese are much more aggressive than the swans, by the way, and decidedly less elegant. The swans paddled their elegant butts out of there while the geese approached us on foot, rapidly and with a strong sense of purpose.

"Give me some of that moldy bread," one seemed to hiss at me. "Bitch."

"Okay, okay," I relented, frightenedly hurling crumbs in the opposite direction and speaking directly to the geese in English like a giant dork. The other goose in the pair lunged at me, and I threw a whole wad down the sidewalk. They were eating the bread faster than Sara and I could throw it. It really escalated quickly, though last time I checked I did not end up killing a man with a trident.

We were finally able to entice the geese to go another direction and were able to re-focus our attentions on luring Lancelot and Elaine (though both of the swans are male, one of them is forced to keep the name "Elaine..." sucks to be him) back toward the shore with the coveted moldly bread. Things were going quite swimmingly, and Sara even had one of the geese, let's just say for argument's sake it was Dude Elaine, eating out of her hand. That's when she turned around to get another piece of bread and about leaped out of her Cole Haans. Like some scene out of a really bad and not-at-all-scary horror movie, the geese were right. freaking. there, staring her in the face. That's right, the geese snuck up on us.

And that's the day we got mugged by geese.

Merry Christmas. Yes, I am an idiot.

Today was just a typical day of sitting in lovely Ames noon hour traffic and checking off my list of holiday essentials:

• Gaudy yet Surprisingly Also Charming Christmas tree skirt -- CHECK!
• Packaging tape -- CHECK!
• Front bumper that could also be used to rake one's lawn -- CHECK-UGH

Yes, it wouldn't be the holiday season without someone in our house doing something incredibly stupid to a vehicle, and this year it was my turn after last year's Beetle-windshield-cracking incident, which you may remember as one of many costly aspects of our holiday light display. This morning I decided to crank the ole steering wheel a little too early when backing out of my driveway, and next thing you know there's a fence post and a massive evil hunk of concrete driveway conspiring to gnaw a ginormous hole in my poor Honda's front bumper, which I have decided after closer inspection is apparently made out of recycled milk jugs. I am also not 100% convinced there isn't a pack of angry beavers living under the shrubs that is actually to blame.
My punishment for this act of sheer idiocy, of course, is twofold. One: I have to take my car to an auto body shop and pay for a bumper replacement -- and, I can only hope, drive another lovely loaner car for an unnecessary length of time. Two: Whilst driving around town in the Cherry-Red Hair Pick of Doom, I get to have people stare in disbelief at my car with expressions of sheer terror, gripping their steering wheels all the more tightly as they fear the death wagon that passes them.
But other than that, it's great.
Merry Christmas. Santa's putting a new bumper in my stocking this year. Oy.

Mac's kids

Somewhere in the second or third row of that pack is #63 (actually, right in the middle behind #67's left shoulder, I think). He's 19 years old and doesn't know what the future holds for him. He's too young to be cynical. Too young to be concerned about the knee injuries he's about to sustain. Too young to realize that the man in the front of the pack -- the man who, I realize looking back at this photo now, was himself extremely young -- had the weight of the world on his shoulders but never once let it show.

Number 63 never second-guessed his decision to let this young coach lead him, and he never should have. In a world where wins and losses, dollars and cents try to define us, Dan McCarney always let passion and courage, friendship and loyalty define him.

If Dan McCarney lost his job, he lost it because he was loyal, had integrity, and played by the rules. While college athletes across the country are driving around in fancy cars, Dan McCarney's players are learning the value of hard work. While players in some programs run stairs to "make up" for breaking the law, Dan McCarney set rules and stuck by them...making tough but fair decisions even when it hurt him and his team's success. While other student-athletes were encouraged to run their programs like a business, Dan McCarney told his players to show their emotion...to embrace joy, fear, and even pain. For Dan McCarney, your heart was as important to wear on your sleeve as your team colors.

Make no mistake: Dan McCarney is a master salesman. He always has the right thing to say. He admits he's a somewhat boring interview. But don't confuse him with an insincere person. The Special Olympics, the children's home he built, and the families of every student-athlete who has ever played for him will tell you you're dead wrong. His schedule may be full, but there's always room in his heart for the people who touch his life in ways both big and small.

He's the man who will have flowers at your grandmother's hospital bed, before everyone in your family even knows she is sick.

He's the man who could make a fortune in motivational speaking. I have yet to hear him do a public speech to which at least one audience member doesn't respond, "I'm ready to strap on a helmet and take the field myself."

He's the man who, upon announcing his resignation, should have been bitter and weary but instead showed even more class and integrity than ever.

There's no need to worry about Dan McCarney. He can -- and will -- do anything. The great sadness I feel over his departure is purely selfish. I don't want to say goodbye. He's our coach.

During the week most people have described as feeling "like someone died," Dan McCarney's legacy lives. It lives in every young man who believed in Coach Mac's dream and came to Iowa State to help him make it a reality. They are loyal, motivated, honest, and passionate men. They are great leaders. They are good people.

They are Mac's kids.

And I'm so glad I married one. Thank you, Coach Mac.

Reader Interaction Alert! Choose the ugliest art in my lake cottage!

Let me first start out by saying that the resort I visit on vacation every year has never before and never will be known for its elegant cottage interiors. There was the brown couch that, upon closer examination, was found to contain a swastika pattern. There's my cousin's blinding blue and white striped wallpaper. Lovely wallpaper borders abound, including the fabulous forest green bow border in my mom's cottage. Everywhere you look there's fake nailhead trim peeling off cheap end tables and beds made Midwest-cozy with Miami-esque, retina-searing pink-and-teal comforters. Ahhh, the comforts of home. What can I say? It's all hideous. In a charming way, of course.

But it's the art of Cottage #1, my home sweet home for part of each August, that truly inspires deeper thought. Like when my mom and I are pounding back Cape Cods and Miller Brewing products and looking around the room, going: "Who the hell thought of that?" Which eventually leads to a new topic of discussion: "What is the ugliest thing in this cottage?" I've pondered, but I can't decide, so I'm asking for your help. Take a look at these doozies of candidates and cast your vote:

Candidate #1: The Glued Macaroni and Found Objects Octagon


This piece is hung above the sink in my kitchen, so that while I'm washing dishes I can stare and it and wonder things like "What the hell is that?" and "Is that a hair that accidentally got cememted in there with the garbanzo beans?" Also: "I wonder what the artist was thinking when he added the elbow macaroni. Is that an existential statement?"

Candidate #2: Someone Making a Perfectly Good Mirror Non-Functional by Painting Butterflies and Flowers and Girly Crap On It


This lovely piece is in my bedroom. The mirror in my bedroom is actually warped, so when I try to look at myself in it to see if the hairs on my head are straight and growing out of my scalp instead of my chin I sort of resemble the illegitimate test tube child of Michael Jackson and Sloth from the movie Goonies. It sure would be nice to have a mirror that works. Just to the right of it is one that appears to work (see photo above!). But there's a problem: Some jackass painted some ugly design on it and all I can see is maybe one eyeball at a time. So I guess I can't actually prove that I don't look like Michael Jackson and Sloth's test tube baby with a full Abraham Lincolnish beard. Yikes for me.

Candidate #3: Slice-o-Tree-Trunk With Ten Layers of Varnish


This piece hangs in the living room. It actually makes a better mirror than Candidate #2 in that this poor, defenseless slice of tree (or, acutally more likely, plastic reproduction of a slice of a tree trunk) has been coated in so much clear gunk that you can see your reflection in it during the daytime. It also has a scary river scene painted on it that looks nothing like anything in the vicinity of Rock Lake. Cute!

Candidate #4: Wood Ducks in a Multi-Colored Sky


Okay, at least I actually saw some wood ducks in the millpond while visiting Rock Lake, so this piece probably makes as much sense as any of the art in my cottage. This painting, which hangs above the really ugly and smelly couch in my living room is definitely ugly, but it probably doesn't deserve to be voted the worst piece of art in Cottage 1. Just saying is all.

Candidate #5: Home Sweet Home: Where Do I Even Begin?


When my mom was serving as room mother at Kingsley Elementary School lo those many years ago, she decided it might be fun to have the class play some "Victorian parlor games." So she checked out a book on the subject from our local public library. That's when we found the Flaming Raisin Grab for Kids. In short, the game involved: 1) filling a bucket with brandy; 2) putting raisins in it; and 3) setting it on fire. The excited young participants would all gather around to see who could grab the most flaming raisins from the bucket. Despite my wishes, we did not play this game at the 1986 Halloween party in Mrs. Sergeant's third grade class. But to this day I remember the rules and am waiting for my golden opportunity to play it so that I can fry off all my arm hair. Okay, so why am I telling you all this? Back to the art! Even though it doesn't really make sense, every time I look at this piece of artwork I wonder to myself if later maybe someone will wheel in a flaming bucket of brandy-soaked raisins so this family can play Flaming Raisin Grab. They just seem like they might play it. Probably whoever painted this cozy Family Scene on Planks of Fake Wood would, too. Because he or she is on crack.

Candidate #6: Okay, so it's Not Art, But it's a Really Fugly Valance


Wow, this is lovely. It really completes the look of the bathroom. I get to look at it while I sit on the toilet. Coincidence? I think not.

Well, there you have it. The nominees for Ugliest Thing in My Cottage 2006. Let's open the polls. If you live in Florida and vote for the crappy butterfly mirror, I'll know you really meant the slice of fake tree with river scene. Or Katherine Harris' eye makeup. Ya know.

Go see Wordplay now.

I love geeks. Sometimes I actually wish I were a BIGGER geek. And while I certainly don't mean to imply that most of the people featured in the movie Wordplay are geeks (Okay, Ellen the baton-twirler strolling through Manhattan with the broke ass golf umbrella is an awesome geek, but she's an exception), it definitely celebrates the geek qualities I love and to which I can on some levels relate. Like recognizing that the word "admired" is an anagram for "married." And thinking it's fun to stay inside and play word games while other people are out drinking Bacardi with their underwear on their head. Or whatever.

So first, a confession: I cried during the movie. Not surprising, I suppose, since I bawl like a baby during things like the Scripps spelling bee and minor athletic competitions in which I have no investment. It's a quirk, okay? And quirks are supposed to be endearing, I think. Either that, or I'm just a total weirdo.

Either way, Wordplay is a tear-jerker of a gem. It's very well-edited; it had just enough human interest to make it great for non-puzzle lovers and just enough puzzle to stimulate the brain. And I loved all the contestants, and not just because Tyler was wearing a really pants-kicking Trogdor T-shirt (See! A Homestar Runner reference! I'm a geek!) You could really relate to them, even though they are all so much smarter than I am that playing Scrabble with them would sort of be like golfing with Annika Sorenstam. (Okay, make that maybe Michelle Wie. I'm far worse at golf than I am at word games.)

And for those of you who have love/hate relationships with William Jefferson Clinton (one of the celebrities featured in the film) like I do, this movie is just another thing that will make you long for the days when we had a smart president -- but also, of course, make you remember how he was too smart to be so stupid and subsequently want to pinch his head off and kick it down the street. But he looks very nice in the movie wearing his aqua tie and doing his little crossword puzzles with his blue felt-tip pen. Damn him!

But go see Wordplay. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and all that crap. This is why I don't review movies for a living. Just see it.

The only thing that would make this cooler is if it had happened on a plane

So you probably already heard the news. I mean, Israel and Lebanon are out of control and the Voting Rights Act passed and the weather is wreaking all sorts of havoc. But the news story of the week just had to be the Burmese python that ate an entire queen-sized electric blanket -- cord, control box, and all.

According to CNN, Houdini the snake (who, for what it's worth, does not do much air travel even though he often visits schools for educational demonstrations) had the blanket in his living quarters after his owner placed it there to keep him warm. While left unsupervised, the snake managed to unplug, and then eat the. entire. thing. "X-rays showed the tangle of the blanket's wiring extending through about 8 feet of the python's digestive tract," the article states. "The surgery to remove it took an 18-inch incision."

Experts on Reptile Blanket-Eating estimate it took Houdini six hours to devour the item, which could have killed him had surgeons not been able to operate.

But doctors say the snake, which mostly travels via SUV, is alive and well with a good prognosis. I think we all feel better knowing that if one of us, or the snake we love, eats an entire electric blanket, modern medicine can indeed save us. I can sleep tonight now. Just not with an electric blanket.

Gimme the works

Among my favorite childhood memories are our annual trips to watch the 4th of July fireworks over the golf course at Sunnyside Country Club in Waterloo (No, we were not members of the country club, but they let the "riff-raff" in for fireworks every year.) The grass upon which we spread our blankets was green and lush, and Mom and Dad would always give my little brother and me a few packages of sparklers to burn through in the dusk as we waited for the show to begin. We got to stay up late. We usually stopped for ice cream afterward. When you're a kid, it doesn't get much better.

There were people all around us on blankets and in lawn chairs, but as a child I never even noticed them. Our family was in its own little world as the colored streaks slashed across the black sky and the Off! repellent kept our bony little ankles reasonably free of mosquito bites. Some years I, rife with sanguine patriotism, would just lie flat on my back on the plaid blanket and focus only on the bursts of pink, blue, and gold above me.

This year's trip to 4th of July fireworks reminded me very little of those placid nights at Sunnyside. This year, Ben and I camped out on an easement at 70th Street and Aurora Avenue in Des Moines. I felt decidedly not alone with the experience, as cars sputtered past us on the street to our right and gangs of teenagers stolled down the sidewalk to our the left, talking on cell phones and smoking Marlboros and yelling and definitely not paying any attention to or feeling any inspired patriotism from the fireworks above them. The dog on the blanket next to us either loved or wished to eat children, as every tot that passed was greeted with an ear-piercing bellow and hyperactive doggy dance. Ben commented on how the fireworks we were watching were probably made by children in Chinese sweatshops. Thanks for that, honey. He is the king of levity. Then a car squealed its tires and burst up to 65 miles per hour in the intersection behind us. Then another car drove by, with a teenaged girl hanging out the window, yelling: "Happy 4th of July, motherf$#@ers." And, to truly cap off the ambiance, each and every firework that burst into the sky above us was punctuated by some rednecks yelling "Woo-woo" at a nearby house party.

Ahhh, reality. Sometimes it's a real pain in the booty. So is sitting on uneven grass along a major Des Moines thoroughfare. Just saying is all.

Ice, Ice Baby

I've never been much of a figure skating fan. But when the opportunity came up to purchase box seats for "Champions on Ice" at Wells Fargo Arena last night, I couldn't resist. I went to the show sixteen, I think(?) years ago when it was at Hilton Coliseum and absolutely fell in love with French skater and Olympic silver medalist Surya Bonali, who did backflips through the air in her routine.

I am happy to report that Surya Bonali is STILL doing "Champions on Ice." She is a little older, but she's still doing the blackflips (just not as many as she used to, I suppose). I am glad my memory hadn't deceived me when I lobbied to my husband that we HAD to go to this "Champions on Ice" thing because it was WICKED COOL. I was right.

Pretty much every skater who won a medal at the 2006 Olympics was on hand, including American Sasha Cohen, gold-medalist Shizuka Arakawa of Japan, pairs champs Tatiana Totmianina & Maxim Marinin, and Russia's men's singles gold medalist Evgeni Plushenko (who, along with Ukranian Victor Petrenko, was my most favorite-ist).

The most exciting part of the evening, I have to admit, was the "World's Fastest Acrobats," Vladimir and Oleksiy. The Ukranian duo was funny and amazing: Vladimir, 6-2 and 210 pounds, repeatedly balanced Oleksiy, 5-7 and 150 pounds, on one hand above his head, standing on the ice with Oleksiy balancing himself on one hand in an inverted position ON VLADIMIR'S HEAD, etc. You pretty much had to see it to belive it. At one point, Vladimir was lying on his back on the ice, ONE skate-clad leg in the air, balancing a stack of six crates on the blade of the skate. Then, in what my mind could only come up with as the absolute limit of what could be done with this scenario, Oleksiy climbed up the side of the stack of crates and balanced himself on top. I swear I am not making this up. I haven't been this perplexed by a stunt since I saw the Red Panda flip bowls on her head whilst riding a unicycle at halftime of a Cyclone men's basketball game last season. And because it was 2005-2006 Cyclone men's basketball, this also was the most exciting part of the evening.

And even though it ever-so-slightly freaked out my husband (most of the women we talked to at the event had husbands who refused to come; such a shame) when Rudy Galindo was shaking his sequined ass at men in the crowd, we both had a fantastic time watching the champions on ice. How often do that many world-class athletes come to little ole Des Moines? It's a must-see. But then, I'm a sucker for world-class athletes.

Pass the popcorn

With Ben being stuck on the sofa for the last four days, we have watched a lot of movies. A LOT of movies. Mostly they've been movies Ben wants to watch, so I found myself checking out "Dodge Ball," "Harry Potter," and some other stuff I wouldn't (and didn't) watch. But I also tried to find some that both of us could enjoy so that he wasn't just lying there watching movies by himself all this time: "Prime" and "Murderball" fit into this category. Then there was the issue of the new Keira Knightley "Pride and Prejudice." We both were sort of interested, but also cautiously optimistic as we own the BBC miniseries on DVD at our house. And we worship it. Okay, I worship it. Ben merely likes it.

"You need to watch [the new one]," my Mom -- also a huge P&P book and miniseries fan -- told me a few months ago. "It's okay, except the acting is only okay, the dialog has been changed (for what possible reason would this need to happen?), the hairdos are all wrong, and the ending is like waaaay cheesy."

Sounded like a heartfelt endorsement to me.

"Pride and Prejudice" is a great story, which would explain why the new movie isn't thaaat bad. It wasn't edited too horribly, seeing whereas the book is very difficult to cram into a two-hour Hollywood romance. But I guess I just think the miniseries length makes for a much better screenplay.

Basically, the problem with the new movie is that the old miniseries is just perfect. The actors in the new movie weren't that bad, but no individual character that I can think of was portrayed better than he or she was in the miniseries, leading me of course to wonder what the point even was.

And OH MY GOD was my mother right about the ending. Did everyone in production one day smoke a bunch of crack and decide: "I know! We should end the movie by having Mr. and Mrs. Darcy sitting on some sort of platform and have Mr. Darcy repeatedly kiss Elizabeth all over the face like a deranged woodpecker saying, "Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy" over and over again like an equally deranged parrot?

So I've watched it. Now I never have to watch it again, right? I have to say, if I want to watch the story in a two-hour Hollywood format again, I'll bust out "Bridget Jones' Diary," for many reasons -- not the least of which is that they didn't mess up Darcy. If you know what I mean. And I think you do.

Shall I fetch you another mini Snickers from the freezer?

Me to my husband, while driving him home from the hospital Thursday afternoon: Wow, our relationship would be perfect if you were always on these drugs that make you so giddy.

Husband: Our relationship would be perfect if you were always this nice to me.

Good point.

Do you have any ID?

My husband recently visited the DMV to renew his driver's license, so he got to press his forehead into the vision tester thing against the sweat of the unwashed masses and sit in a hard chair while waiting for a lady in a smock who smells like Beaman's chewing gum to snap the camera in his general direction.

Ha! My license doesn't expire until 2009! I gloat, sort of.

The only fear I have about not getting to the DMV until 2009 is that I will have to continue to worry for three more years about what happens if I wind up dead in a ditch with only my driver's license to identify me...for I am certain that the law enforcement observation will go something like this:

"Wow, not only is this chick dead in a ditch, she also stole some skinny girl's driver's license."

Yes, despite my God's-honest attempts to change it, my driver's license says I weigh 140 pounds. I think I initially fudged down to this figure (reasonably) when I was 15 and got my first learner's permit. But I swear the weight on my ID has not been changed since then.

And I know what you're saying: Whatever, Kate. You are just avoiding having the number changed because you don't want people to see your actual weight.

But this is not true! I fill out the little questionnaire thingy to indicate that I weigh FIVE POUNDS LESS THAN MY ACTUAL WEIGHT every time I go to the DMV, and they never change it. Ben observed the same thing when he was there several weeks ago. THEY DO NOT READ THE FORM after you fill it out.

On the other hand, my blue-eyed hubby insists on listing his eye color as "hazel," so you can forget about his driver's license accurately identifying his dead body, either.

I actually think my fear is probably pretty unreasonable since they usually use witnesses, family, friends, etc., to identify your dead in a ditch body. Not your driver's license. But you never know. Maybe I should get some important double-secret document drafted up to indicate my actual girth. That might be easier than getting the DMV to change it on my license. Yaknow.

Blowin' in the wind

A friend of mine once threw a nasty and inedible gas station cheese sandwich out the car window as she was driving home from a night at the bar. Her boyfriend really wondered what she was had done the next morning when he discovered multiple dried globs of an unnatural yellow substance on the driver's side door. It makes a great story now, of course -- the moral of which is: Sometimes throwing things out the window whilst driving doesn't work as well as one plans.

Yesterday, I was driving to Super Target (No way. Me going to Target, right?) when I made my standard rear-view mirror observation: a gross gray hair protruding like a dandelion stem from my forehead. I responded with my usual strategy: instantly yank it from my skull and throw it out the window. As much as one can "throw" a single strand of hair, of course. At the time I released it, I suspected due to crosswinds that it might not have made it very far. But I didn't really give it much more thought.

Imagine my surprise TODAY, a whole 24 hours later, when I looked out my driver's side window while sitting at the light at 63rd and University and saw none other than MY ICKY GRAY HAIR, flapping in the breeze as it clung tenaciously to my window, stuck down by...I dunno, something.

Perhaps mini mart cheese sandwich droppings?

If the gray hair thinks it's funny to taunt me in this fashion, I feel I must state clearly how emphatically I disagree. It's driving me straight to the Clairol aisle. Perhaps I need to go to Target...

Finger-Shrinkin' Bad

I believe I have mentioned that I am an alternate on a slowpitch softball B-league team. Alternate is the correct position for me, since I have never played softball before in my life like ever. As an alternate, my job is to come to all the games and be available should anyone fail to show up, get injured, suffer alien abduction, etc.

This Sunday someone failed to show up. So I was going to have to hit. "Whatever," I thought, "I'll take a few swipes at it and see how it goes." Then, in the first inning, one of our players got injured. So I was not only hitting but also playing right field. Against a pretty good team, mind you, that can pretty much hit the ball where it wants -- which means it will gladly rip a few deep ones toward that Slow Alternate in Right Who Clearly Knows Jack Squat About How to Play Softball.

Despite what I had told myself to the contrary, I was a little embarrassed stepping up to the plate after having basically no idea what I was doing. I swung on the first pitch. Foul. Actually, I barely hit it, so it just sort of bounced up and hit me. Sort of embarrassing, but okay. I get another chance. The second ball came in looking good, so I took another swing. Dink. It dribbled across the infield. "Now I have to run," I thought, tossing the bat to the ground and realizing it was time to take those Slow Norwegian genes for a stroll around the block. I find myself running hard, clad in New Balance walking shoes and Old Navy track pants that restrict my stride, but with a small burst of confidence coursing through me. Oy. First base is farther away than it looks. I see the throw coming to first, and I know I might have a chance if I can just lengthen my strides. I lean forward, touch the base, and hit the brakes, not having seen the throw come in. I turn back to survey the situation. E3! Victory is mine! The first baseman bobbled it. I am on base. Holy shit.

"Good job, honey," Ben encourages me. "You're on base! Holy shit."

I see he was expecting that about as much as I was.

"Now you know you have to tag up here," he said.

"Um, right," I said. "Right."

"If he hits it in the air, you have to wait to run until someone catches it," another teammate clarifies. "If it's on the ground, RUN!"

"If it's on the ground, run; if it's on the ground, run," I repeat to myself, taking a not-really professional position on the base. The first baseman looks at me like I have seven eyes, and I wonder if I should explain to her that this is my first time playing softball. Not much time for scholarship or chit chat, though; Justin smacks a line drive on his first pitch.

"It's on the ground!" I think. "I have to run."

So I take off running. New Balance walking shoes are not softball cleats. My balance is getting a tish wobbly, but I think I can make it there. I will advance to second! I will advance to second! I will...fall forward into the gravel.

I stagger up, the opponent's shortstop coming toward me to make sure I was not also injured. "No, I'm totally fine," I say, dusting off my bloody hands. "Am I out?" Somehow I thought there was a possibility that I could keep running for second.

Turns out I was out. It seems I actually didn't fall down because I was Master Klutz of the Universe. Justin's shot hit me in the foot. Directly. In. The. Foot. "You totally got sniped," Steffen said as I returned to the dugout. "Tough break; what are the odds?"

While I appreciate my teammates' comforting tone, I have to think that I wasn't just unlucky. A faster or more adroit athlete probably would have been able to dodge the bullet. But they're nice to me, and after all: I know it's not my fault. Last weekend, I learned that individuals with ring fingers that are longer than their index fingers are the most athletic sorts...and if your index finger is actually longer than your ring finger, well...
Anyway, this guy on TV predicted the exact finish of people in a foot race just by looking at their fingers.

AND OH MY GOD LOOK AT MY FINGERS.



I am, like, the only person in my immediate family whose index fingers are longer. And mine are not just a little longer. They are way hella longer.

It's not always easy loving sports and being oh-so-awful at them. But at least I know the deck was stacked against me in the finger length and athleticism departments. Can I also add: Ow, my thighs and butt? I am a runner, not a sprinter. I had no idea how much of a difference in muscle use the latter involved. So I am walking around like a jock the last two days. A jock who is an alternate in slowpitch B-league softball.|

All I can say is this: Stubby Ring Fingerites, unite! And just keep on running, even if you don't know what you're doing. It's just a game, after all. And they give you beer when you're done.

The kids are all right.

The first thing I have to explain is that I recently joined a slowpitch softball team. This is extremely funny, since I have never ever in my life played softball. I have played whiffle ball in the back yard with a plastic bat, which clearly does not count as having played softball. The second thing I have to explain, which makes this really hilarious, is that despite appearances I am quite possibly the worst athlete in America, or at least in Des Moines. People always think I am a good athlete because of my tall stature, broad shoulders, and hulking muscles (okay, I made that last one up), so they invite me to do things like play on their softball teams or lift heavy boxes (actually, I can do that) or bench press cows, etc.

They have come to the wrong person.

But this time I was assured I could just join the team, be an alternate, and guard the beer. Hurrah! Something I can do! Beer-guarding is perhaps my greatest skill.

I forgot that before I get around to actually guarding beer, I have to practice this foreign sport they call softball. (Basically, if it doesn't involve a round orange ball, a rim, and a net, I'm clueless.) So my friend Greg arranged for us to go down to American Legion Park in West Des Moines last Tuesday night and get in some practice time.

First I threw a softball. That went marginally well. I think I "throw like a girl," however, which is unfortunate but not particularly surprising. Catching was also somewhat challenging because I was wearing a giant glove that kept sliding around on my hand. (Great, now I have to actually invest money and buy a new glove. I was saving that money for beer.) I was going with the flow, playing right field and generally doing very little until the left-handed batter came up to the plate. I would helpfully yell each time we almost decapitated a small soccer-playing child out in left. All in all, I was just out enjoying the weather.

Then it was my turn to bat. I don't really care if I look like a doofus in front of my friends and some strangers who are playing on the team with us. I was afraid of the children. Three skater kids had climbed the fence behind home plate and were hovering ominously above each time someone came up to bat. Great, a bunch of 12 year-olds are going to make fun of me, I thought. This is going to be a humbling experience.

As expected, my first time swinging a softball bat was pretty pathetic. There was lots of whiffing and hitting it extremely short distances. What was unexpected were the kids above: "That was a good one!" they told me when I actually lined one that actually almost went to the edge of the infield. "Two in a row," they said, encouraging me.

I have to admit I thought the kids were going to be punks. And I feel bad about that now. They weren't in the least bit smartass. So thanks, kids. If you ever give up skating perhaps you could go into motivational training. I'd hire you.

Des Moines is the new Disneyworld.

On a Sunday afternoon I should have spent cleaning my house, folding socks (yeah mmm, about that...perhaps later), shopping for essentials, and being an All-Around Responsible Citizen, Ben and I totally decided instead to goof off. Art museum, steakhouse, book store, golf store, movies. Eating dinner at 8:30 p.m. Watching Maryland beat Carolina in the women's Final Four. Diet orange soda. Sudoku. New pajamas. Finally getting to the newspaper. Bed. Yay.

It was a good day -- a good day to cruise around Des Moines in the Trusty Wonderhonda and accomplish absolutely nothing. Des Moines is a pretty cool place to do stuff.

And I am not the only one who feels this way.

As Ben and I were wandering through the Des Moines Art Center's museum shop after looking at the Richard Tuttle exhibit (Ben was smart enough to enjoy it; I was baffled and went back to drool over the Grant Wood), we overhead a family talking to the museum shop clerk. It was the same family I'd seen parading through the center, looking at many of the same things we were. They were adorable. Black father, white mother, gorgeous children carefully dressed in Gap Kids attire and outfitted with neat little color-coordinated backpacks. The good ole American family. I remembered seeing them and thinking that it was nice of them to spend an afternoon out together.

But that wasn't it.

"We're just having a great time," the father told the clerk. "We went to the Science Center this morning, which we didn't get to do last time."

Last time. Last time they were here. On vacation.

I quickly gleaned that this family is from the Twin Cities, and they were spending their family vacation in Des Moines! Not only that, they had already vacationed here and were coming back for more.

"We're going to go next to the mall," the father said. "I know we have a mall up by us [Says me: yeah, like the biggest, most family-friendly mall in the entire world], but we're on vacation and we just don't go there when we're in Minneapolis.

"Tonight, we have tickets to see the Lion King," the father went on. "We're so excited!"

Des Moines. For vacation. I guess we are getting pretty cool.

Cold with like colors

I don't really have that much to write about, but there's laundry. A big stinky pile of it.

So here are five observations for a Sunday that will help me postpone the inevitable Doing of the Laundry:

1. I ordered a bottle of wine last night. For just myself.
Last night, after sharing a delicious bottle of red wine at our house with Brent and Jen, we cruised over to the neighborhood bar and grill to eat, drink, and watch Brent's co-worker's bluegrass band perform. Okay, and we were merry, too. I know you didn't want me to leave that one hanging out there. So they had this special: two dollars off any bottle of wine. And after drinking the yummy bottle at our house, I was in a wine kind of mood. So during the cocktail ordering time, after Jen asked for a dirty martini and Ben and Brent each ordered beers, I pointed to an Australian cabernet on the wine list and said "I'll have a bottle of this."

The look on our server's face was absolutely priceless, and Ben did one of those motorboat splort laughs when I said it. I've just always wanted to order a whole bottle of wine for a cocktail. Mission accomplished. And it lived up to my expectations.

And no, I did not end up drinking it all by myself. I made her bring four glasses, and the sucker was polished off even before I got my fish tacos. Fish tacos and cabernet. And bluegrass. Good times.

2. It's not so much the laundry I hate. It's the folding and putting away part that really annoys me.
I mean pairing up socks? That sucks.

3. I am the awesomest NCAA pool participant EVAH. Evah!
Um, not to gloat, but I did pick LSU in the Final Four. Yep, I did. Sixteen points for me. You see, I actually had a tip before the tournament started that Big Baby Glen Davis had tapeworms in his belly. So, is that technically considered cheating?

4. Billy Blanks is an evil, evil man.
I said he was ugly, too, but my husband insists he just "looks bad on packaging."

So I started doing Billy's Boot Camp (my husband's purchase, not mine) to try and get in shape. Boy, am I out of shape. I mean seriously. But first of all, I feel like a gigantic stooge bouncing around in our family room punching invisible boxing bags and would die of embarrassment if anyone ever actually watched me do it. And second of all, that tape comes to kick your pants. I mean, it hates your mom AND your grandma. The ab exercises will blow your mind. And the only thing that really keeps me going through the workout is yelling sadistic things at Billy while he's, for example, making me hold my leg up in the air over my head for 24 counts longer than he said we were going to. And yes, I have actually fallen down while doing this. Boy, I love working out.

5. If your name is Richard and your last name starts with "Bals," should you really go by "Dick?"
I think not.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

My favorite part of the movie Office Space (well, okay, I love almost every part of the movie Office Space, but work with me here) might be when our loveable protagonist Peter Gibbons starts "being real flaky" at work and shoves, triumphantly, the wall of his cubicle to the floor to reveal the large window it has been hiding. Then, of course, he eats Cheetos and plays Tetris at his desk. What's not to love about that? But I digress.

There's just something about falling section of "systems furniture" that makes he heart go yippy. I hate hate hate cubicles and have tried to avoid working in places that have them, so I am glad to see today that even the guy who invented them feels inordinate compunction about having inflicted this ugly, creativity-stifling torture on the world.

Dilbert would be proud of Bobby Propst.

My results on the 3-variable funny test

This is pretty gosh-darned accurate! And I DID love The Office! Word.

The Wit
(71% dark, 34% spontaneous, 26% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN COMPLEX DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

More on the light fiasco

Before I tell the tale of our family holiday light display, perhaps a little background info would be helpful. In April, Ben and I sold our house in Ames in favor of a new Beaverdale crib. Not being from Des Moines, I did not know much about Beaverdale other than it had lots of businesses in it with names like "Beaver Mower" and "Beaver Cleaners" that people made fun of. And it had lots of brick houses. "Beaverdale bricks" to be specific. I certainly had never been on Wallace-Ashby, or my current street, which is directly adjacent to Wallace-Ashby, before. But everyone we knew who was originally from or had lived in Des Moines said the same thing when we told them where our new house was located: "Oh! You will have to put up some really good Christmas lights to live in that neighborhood." Apparently people drive slowly through our little part of Beaverdale when it comes time for holiday light-based entertainment around these parts.

Oh shit. Ben and I -- two of the bigger height-phobes on the planet, came to a quick realization: We had just bought an extremely tall house in the alleged Christmas light mecca of metro Des Moines. Add to this equation Ben's quasi-Griswaldian compunction to keep up with the Joneses and my apparent ineptitude at stringing any sort of multi-hued bulb affair in a symmetrical fashion and we have ourselves an interesting situation.

We had planned to string up the lights on Nov. 27, which was a very balmy day and the day most of our neighbors were putting up their lights. Sadly, we were in a serious funk that day after returning from the ISU football game in Lawrence, Kan., the day before. Ben consoled himself with golf all morning and didn't even go out to get the 32-foot ladder we needed until after noon that Sunday. Needless to say, when Ben finally returned with the ladder strapped into the back of a friend's truck after placing a $300 crack in his windshield (32-foot ladder + VW Beetle=not such a swell idea after all), he wasn't much in the mood for holiday cheer. We went to the afternoon matinee of Good Night and Good Luck instead

So that left last Saturday. The day. I had purchased about $150 worth of lights over the past week, and obviously we had the ladder. Upon realizing there were no electrical outlets on the outside of the house, Ben hired an electrician to come out and install them Saturday morning while he worked on the more artistic aspects of the endeavor. This was becoming an expensive proposition.

It was about 14 degrees when Ben ventured out to start the project that morning. Quite a contrast from the 50-degree temps we'd had the previous weekend, but who can get in the holiday spirit when it's nice outside, right? I, who had stayed up most of the night reading, was still asleep at 9 a.m. when Ben bellowed up the stairs at me. "Honey! Can you do me a favor?"

I snapped awake, embarrassed to still be snoozing at 9. "Sure, I'll be right down." When I got outside I realized it had begun snowing.

The favor ended up being TRIP #1 TO THE HARDWARE STORE. Here I go.

On the first trip I looked for, but did not purchase, little tiny hooks and brown outdoor extension cords (could not find).

So I tried a bigger hardware store (TRIP #2 TO THE HARDWARE STORE)

There I purchased some little tiny hooks but no extension cords. All they had was yellow, forest green, lime green, grass green, orange, red, and hot pink. (hot pink?) Apparently brown extension cords are the "socks with sandals" of the exterior illumination fashion world.

So it was back to the house, where I dropped off the hooks and immediately swung back around to go pick up my stranded friend, Steffen, who had called while I was at hardware store #2 to say he needed a ride. On my way home from taking him and couple of others to get their car at a nightclub, I relented and bought the forest green extension cords from the first hardware store (This occurred at TRIP #3 TO THE HARDWARE STORE).

I was just back at home getting ready to helpfully make some hot cocoa for Ben and the electrician when Ben summoned me to make TRIP #4 TO THE HARDWARE STORE. At least Ben went with me this time after I nearly blew a gasket when he said he needed 6 to 8-inch spikes to anchor the ladder. (Spikes?) Thank goodness he went along, as I would not have known that nine-inch nails were an appropriate substitute for six- to eight-inch spikes. Rather appropriate, aren't they? Considering the fact that someone was about to be crucified. Ahem.


So I went back to my cocoa. Later, when I stuck my head out the front door, I found our good chum Matthew standing at the top of our ladder (anchored with giant nails to the ground, of course), pinning hooks and attaching lights to the wood trim at the waaaaaay ass top off the house. Where was my faithful Clark Griswold? Standing on the ground. Turns out he started up the ladder, nearly peed himself, and retreated back down as the fear of extreme heights overtook him. Weird how that works. Matthew, on the other hand, is not a threat to chicken out -- seeing whereas he's the same guy who once jumped off the roof of his house while clutching two 80-pound bags of shingles in his left mitt.

Steffen also came over to help, so I offered him some of my marvelous homemade cocoa. Yes! A taker on cocoa! Unfortunately, the cocoa had been sitting on the stove for a while and had built up its own protective shell, which Steffen urged me to just "scrape off." For some reason my pea brain decided it would be easier to strain the cocoa. Of course straining cocoa is difficult to do when you are straining the liquid part directly into the kitchen drain. I stopped myself just in time to salvage one decent mug of the stuff. Yes, add this to my list of brunette moments -- right next to my reference at Thanksgiving to the "three-finger discount" which resulted in my husband and brother running around my mother's house attempting to figure out exactly what types of items one might be able to steal with three fingers. Which was funny. But I digress.

TRIP #5 TO THE HARDWARE STORE came around 3 p.m., when Ben and Steffen convinced me that we needed some additional mounts for the light bulbs, and some sleds so that we could celebrate later by hurling ourselves down the icy slopes of Waveland golf course with only a 1/8-inch-thick piece of plastic to hold on to. Dutifully, I made my final hardware trip of the day as they finished attaching lights to our garage (the piece de resistance of our project).

It turns out we were too tired and frozen to want to go sledding, so Steffen and I slept on the couch, watched football, slept on the couch some more, and then watched another football game (oh yeah, and slept on the couch) while Ben finished hooking up the light timers, suspending the ladder from the ceiling of the garage, and snow-blowing the driveway. (Thanks, honey.) Then we gorged ourselves with beans and rice, brisket, sweet potato pancakes, andouille sausage, beer, cabernet, cream cake, and bread pudding. Hooray for the Flying Mango. Oh yeah, and we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to cap off the evening.



Now we just have to figure out who is going to take the lights down this January. Any volunteers?

My night at the cat whiz seminar

Tonight, in the latest installment of my Glamorous Life, I attended a free seminar at the vet school about feline urine and fecal material. I'm serious. Actually it was pretty interesting, with the exception of the part when (and I am not making this up) a woman in the audience described her hemorrhoid pain in graphic detail.

Moving along, I thought I'd share a few things I learned from the seminar:

• The best enzymatic cleaner for removing the presence and odor of cat pee is actually called Anti-Icky Poo
• If you rub a cat's jawline with a cotton ball, you can pick up enough of its scent to rub it on another area in the house where you don't want it to whiz
• If you need to move a litter box, your best bet is to move it two inches per day until you get it to its new location
• You seriously can train a cat to use the toilet, Focker. Even though it doesn't have opposable thumbs.
• It pretty much does no good to ever try and discipline a cat. They don't think that way.

Oh yeah, and I should be nicer to my cat. She did not pee on my carpet because she hates me. It's just how her pea brain rolls.

My prideful prejudice

Milquetoast Darcy?

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who never really likes any movie, is lauding the new film version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley as pretty decent, even going so far as to say it "does Jane Austen proud."

The Chicago Tribune says: "Memories of Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier (from the 1940 film) or Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth (from the 1995 miniseries) won't suffer by comparison."

So...erm...why am I having so much trouble believing this? The new version scares me; it seems that it takes a beautifully written, witty plot and twists it into a gothic romance flick with potentially cheesy dialog. Was there really, really a need for this new movie? It's hard for me to have an open mind about messing with something so purely perfect as P&P.

To quote my friend Lorraine, who also considers it blasphemy for the dialog to be tampered with: "I don't want to see some milquetoast Darcy simper 'you've bewitched me, body and soul.'"

I think that about sums it up. Bring back Colin Firth, o Milquetoast Darcy.

Making spirits bright

I just had the following e-mail exchange with my husband after I went to Target at lunchtime and bought four boxes of Christmas lights for our house:

Me: I went out and got 96 feet of ceramic white lights with the old-fashioned bulbs today. I don't know if it's enough, but it can get us started.

Ben: Thanks, but I think we'll need about six times that amount.

Me: Holy balls! Six times? What are you planning to do?

Ben: Clark, where's my stogie?

Me: *dies laughing, then becomes frightened*

Stay tuned...

Just skip that house with the purse gum, you'll only scrape your knee

Last year, at my old house in Ames, I don't think I had more than 20 trick-or-treaters on Halloween. It was sort of a down year, but not too far off the average for the four Halloweens we lived there. It wasn't a neighborhood with a lot of kids, but it was fairly residential. Twenty seemed about right.

Now I live in a much more family-oriented neighborhood in Des Moines. So I knew that I would probably have more trick-or-treaters this year. I loaded up last week, figuring we could always just eat the leftover candy. "We've got plenty of candy over here," I bragged to my neighbors yesterday afternoon as we discussed football and chased my neighbor Joe's rambunctious cats out of my garage. "You can send them over here; we'll get it covered."

I figure I started the evening with 200 treats. Trick-or-treating began at 6, and I didn' t have a knock at the door until 6:15. We've got plenty of candy, I thought, kicking back in my chair with the Opinion pages of the Sunday Register. A few more kids started coming...okay, we'll go through a good chunk of it...and before I knew it I was listening to a nonstop barrage of jokes (a Des Moines tradition -- you must tell a joke to receive candy on "Beggar's Night") and watching the candy bowl drain down to the least desirable items. My husband, who was in the family room watching Dogma on Comedy Central while swearing in the general direction of a do-it-yourself project, was no help. He just watched me dart from the front door back to the kitchen, using every possible 10-second lull in the action to scan our cupboards for candy or candy-type food products. "Could I hand out marshmallows?" I asked him as he spilled rubber cement in the carpet. "How about granola bars? Do kids like granola bars?" I thought I had some gum in my purse.

Sadly, at 7:20 p.m., I threw in the towel and turned off the front-stoop light of surrender. The kids had eaten me, and my Kit-Kat bars, alive. I had no trick-or-treating game at all. I'd better start my next year's trick-or-treat candy savings fund now.

I did, however, enjoy seeing the costumes and hearing the jokes. My very first trick-or-treater was a three-foot-tall black boy dressed as Napoleon Dynamite, which I found hilarious. And by far the most popular joke of the year was: "Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? -- Because he didn't have the guts." I did not enjoy the snotty 10-year-old who chewed me out because "our steps were too steep" and caused her sister to fall and scrape her knee. All I could do was offer the sister a Band-Aid while her older sib proceeded to berate me. Gee, I hope I didn't act like that when I was 10.

Oh yeah, and I still want to know what a 2-year-old is going to do with Hot Tamales.

Damn you, magical nachos, for toying with my emotions

The nachos hath forsaken us.

So I have this friend, Shane. He has superhuman metabolism, it seems, because he's not the slightest bit chubby despite eating like Godzilla most of the time. I attended the Iowa State vs. Missouri football game with him this weekend, and attention: It was actually Shane's fault ISU lost the game. Shane sends his apologies to the Cyclone faithful.

Why can this loss be blamed on Shane? You see, all through the first half he was extolling the wonderfulness of Missouri's concession stand nachos. He hadn't tasted them, but he saw them and they were available with Philly cheesesteak meat, he informed me. He spent most of the first half debating about whether or not to purchase said nachos. Finally, toward the beginning of the third quarter he relented and returned to Sec. A, Row 64 with a gigantic plate.

While Shane was purchasing the nachos, Cyclone Nik Moser made an interception that set up ISU's go-ahead touchdown. Soon thereafter it was Tigers 14, Nachos 17. All hail the nachos. I partook of the nachos, feeling their golden energy coat my stomach as Iowa State made play after play, dominating the line of scrimmage and shutting down the Mizzou offense. "I knew I should have bought these nachos," Shane gloated, spraying chip residue on the senior citizens in front of us as he cheered for another ISU touchdown. "It's gotta be the nachos." Before long it was Nachos 24, Missouri 14. No one could stop the power of the nachos.

That is, until Shane got selfish. His platter abused and wilted, he stared with defeat at the nacho remains -- quite a few smothered chips buried under a large pile of jalapenos. Bits of Philly cheesesteak meat were scattered randomly across the styrofoam. Being a slightly bigger Cyclone fan than nacho enthusiast, Shane wanted to turn his full attention to cheering.

So he decided to (gasp!) abandon the nachos. Yes, that's right: He threw them in the trash.

You don't need me to tell you that the moment Shane threw away the magical nachos of wealth and prosperity was the moment that Missouri and its backup freshman quarterback started moving the ball and the refs started screwing over Iowa State. Final score: Missouri 27, Iowa State and the Nachos 24.

One will never know why these cruel nachos toyed with our emotions for so long, but we will be left to always wonder what might have been.

Corn for your corns

What's up with Gov. Vilsack lately and his obsession with corn socks? I think I've heard about this from him like eleventy bajillion times, including a conference I attended at which he spoke on Friday.

Not that corn socks don't rule, of course. Coming this spring, you can buy them from a company called Fox River Mills in Osage. According to the Register, "the socks...look like any typical pair. They're white, not yellow. They don't smell like popcorn — no matter how hot your feet get while wearing them."

Good to know.

Pink Eye

Okay, so the University of Iowa recently remodeled its football stadium. Big deal, I know, but it's news here.

Not only is it news here, but now it's controversy here. Why? Because the university decided to keep alive a tradition of former Iowa coach Hayden Fry and remodel the visitor's locker room completely in the color pink. (The old locker room was painted pink under Fry’s leadership, but the new locker room goes much further with custom pink urinals and sinks, etc. Think Barbie barfing up wintergreen lozenges and you'll get the picture.)

Anyway, the pink paint, which I’ve known about for years, had always been explained to me this way: Fry, a former psychology major, chose pink after reading studies that showed looking at the color makes one lethargic. Okay, whatever. It always seemed rather stupid to me, but I didn't really care, and most certainly I understand that an element of psychology plays into college football in many ways.

So, the pink locker room is living on. Not being a Hawkeye fan or a person who spends any time in the Kinnick Stadium locker rooms, I hadn’t really thought too much more about it. And I certainly have never read Hayden Fry's autobiography, A High Porch Picnic. (Actually, I think I'd rather stick barbecue skewers in my eye while listening to Rush Limbaugh than read A High Porch Picnic). However, if I had read the jerk’s book, I would probably have been more disturbed. According to the blog BuzWords, penned by adjunct U of I law professor Erin Buzuvius, Hayden Fry uses his book to explain the pink locker room in this way: "Pink is often found in girl's (sic) bedrooms, and because of that some consider it a sissy color."

A sissy color. Ahem.

I guess deep down I probably always realized that the whole thing was rooted in homophobia but never really took time to think about it. Buzuvius obviously did -- but now, of course, she’s getting blasted for having an opinion. Do I think this is a really big deal? No. But if I were a supporter of the U of I might damned well. It’s awfully embarrassing in the year 2005 for a supposedly forward-thinking university to perpetuate a “tradition” that essentially implies that femininity is tantamount to weakness. I mean, would the coach of a woman’s sport ever paint her opponents’ locker room pink to make them calm? I don’t think so. It’s never been about color psychology.

The irony, of course, is that after appearing on a local television station’s report about the locker room and then posting her opinions on BuzWords, Buzuvius has had about 150 posters on her blog, and plenty of others in additional forums, I’m sure, telling her that she should get over it and find more important things to worry about. (This from people who spend large parts of their day discussing Hawkeye athletics in great detail online, of course.) Other arguments against have largely included sentiments along the lines of “men wear pink now, so how is it sexist?”

The way I see it (and I think the way Buzuvius sees it, too), the actual issue here is not whether painting something pink is in and of itself insulting to any group of people. The “men reclaiming pink” arguments are entirely missing the point. The issue is that the University of Iowa is choosing to celebrate a tradition that is rooted in Hayden’s old-fashioned, good-old-boy sexism.

I mean, if it isn’t a big deal, why was it done?

I think it's a fair question to ask.

Sometimes I DON'T enjoy being a girl

Okay, so here was the scene at our team meeting last week at work:

Emily and Me (looking at each other): Did something just fly by the doorway?
Emily: I think there's a bird in here.
Carole: A bird?
Me: Um...I think it's a bat.
Bat: *Flies by again*
Me: Ick, it is!
Scott: Really? A bat?
Scott: *Goes out in hallway to investigate*
Me: Close the door so it doesn't fly into the meeting room!
Carole: *Follows Scott into the hallway*
Bat: *Flies directly one inch over Carole's head*
Carole: *Screams*
Me: *Screams*
Emily: *Screams*
Carole: Okay, I was going to try and be brave, but I didn't know it was going to fly over my head like that.
Carole: *Falls back into her seat at conference table*
Me: It almost landed on your head. Ew!
All of us: Scott! Close the door to the meeting room!
Scott: *Bravely closes the door and opens all the exterior doors to the building so the bat can fly out*
Emily: I wonder what's going on out there.
Me: I hope he shoos it out.
Scott: *Returns to conference room and closes door behind him*
Scott: Well, I opened all the doors so it can get out.
Me: It's just scared...I'm sure it will fly out.
Emily: I can't believe we all screamed when the bat flew over Carole's head.
Me: What is wrong with us? Like, why should anyone be scared of a little harmless bat?
Emily: We're just girls.
Me: I hate that.

Our night at the State Fair

1. Arrive State Fair.
2. Immediately head to beer garden and order two Bud Lights (one small for me, one large for Ben)
2. Find cheese on a stick booth and order two mozzarellas. (one for me, one for Ben)
3. Purchase round-trip tickets for chair lift. Ride to other side of the fairgrounds.
4. Get off on other side, where Ben purchases a corn dog, wolfs it down, and deposits stick in dumpster.
5. Get back on chair lift.
6. Immediately head to the Grater Taters booth we spotted while riding chair lift.
8. Because line is so long, order some crab rangoons for Ben, which he eats while standing in line for a Grater Tater.
9. Ben eats most of Grater Tater whilst sitting on park bench near the talent stage. I pick a little off and drop a huge cheesy hunk on the ground, getting cheese all over my hand in the process.
10. Head to Varied Industries Building to get chocolate chip cookies in a cup and use the bathroom to wash my hands.
11. Arrive at cookie booth and order two cups (one for me, one for Ben).
12. Whilst eating cookies, head out toward livestock area to see really big bull.
13. Get distracted by beer garden and order a Boulevard and an MGD.
14. Proceed toward livestock area but get stopped by horse parade so that we can't cross the street.
15. Give up on livestock and just head home.
16. Sit at home.
17. Have indigestion.

Save Sesame Street

In an article that appeared in the Washington Post on Friday, we learned that a House subcommittee has voted to make the largest reduction EVER to federal support for public broadcasting, eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite shows like "Sesame Street" and eliminating ALL federal money for the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), which accounts for 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue.

Rep. Ralph Regula, an Ohio republican and the subcommittee's chairman, said the cuts had nothing to do with dissatisfaction over public radio or TV programs (though many have suggested it's part of a Republican attack on programs they perceive as having a "liberal bias.").

While some of the funding can be recovered through other sources, the loss of $23.4 million in federal funds for PBS's "Ready to Learn" programs could mean they go off the air altogether. The Ready to Learn programs include "Sesame Street," "Dragontales," "Clifford the Big Red Dog," and "Arthur." The cuts are also likely to put small public radio stations with shoestring budgets completely out of business.

As a kid who grew up learning Spanish from Maria and Luis, who learned math from "The Count," and who loved to sing "I'm a dog, I'm a workin' dog, I'm a hard workin' dog," I have trouble imagining the future for my own children without Sesame Street.

MoveOn has a petition on its Web site at http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/?t=1
It would also be wise to contact your legislators and tell them you want to protect PBS and NPR and all their affiliates -- the best quality programming we have left.

From the Ghee-Roj

Things people did not buy at my garage sale last weekend:

• A really nice computer desk for $20
• A fully functional Dirt Devil hand vac for $5
• A brand new desktop coffee warmer with coffee mug for $3

Things people scooped right up:

• a beat-up wastebasket for $0.50
• my collection of horrible 1980s/early 1990s audio cassette tapes (I mean, I am not exaggerating when I tell you it included Milli Vanilli, Adam Ant, and the single of "Here Comes the Hotstepper" by Ini Kamoze, okay?) for $5.00
• a broken cooler for $0.75

Scenes from a waiting room

The following was the actual scene I experienced yesterday in the doctor's office waiting room:

First, let me set the scene. I am sitting in the corner, as far away from potentially contagious sick people as possible, minding my own business whilst reading David Sedaris. 1980s hit "The Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex is playing at a mid-range volume from the overhead speakers.

Very elderly lady #1 sitting to my left, talking very loudly to VEL#2 sitting right next to her: Is it a rash?

VEL #2 (SHOUTING): YES, BUT AT LEAST I DON'T GET IT, YOU KNOW, DOWN THERE IN MY PRIVATES ANYMORE.

VEL #1 (ALSO SHOUTING): YES, AND SOMETIMES IT ITCHES! I CAN'T STAND WHEN IT ITCHES DOWN THERE.

My inner monlogue: Please stop yelling about personal discomfort in your privates...Please stop yelling about personal discomfort in your privates...Please stop yelling about personal discomfort in your privates...Please stop yelling about personal discomfort in your privates

Angry Man to my right (mercifully interrupting the private itch conversation): This is ridiculous.

Rest of room:

Angry Man (standing up from his uncomfortable attempt to recline in a waiting room chair, trying to stage a coup): They should at least give us recliners to sit on, as much as we pay for health care. (begins shaking fist)

My inner monologue: Quick, think...is Candid Camera still on the air?

Then the nurse came out and called Angry Man's name, which I believe was Anderson, so that show was over. Then the two VEL's decided to take a stroll over to the optometry department, so I was once again left alone with my book, wondering if I would remember when I got home to write something about this bizarre experience.

Well, I remembered, and now you, reader, are the one paying the price. Sorry.

Billy Packer is a cheese-brained ACC whore

Today my beloved Cyclones were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by No. 1-seeded North Carolina. UNC was more talented and had a much deeper bench. We were outmatched, and the Tar Heels clearly deserved to win the game. I can tolerate this.

What I cannot tolerate is Billy Packer, who called the game for CBS with Jim Nantz. From the beginning, he decided that there were three major themes to the game:

1) North Carolina had already won the game and non-ACC teams such as ISU shouldn't even bother to field basketball teams.
2) Iowa State's players, most of whom average more than 35 minutes of playing time per game, were tired -- no, exhausted.
3) Iowa State's players are thugs who play too rough.

He backed up these themes with some the most idiotic commentary I have ever heard. Here's a brief sampling, as I could never list them all:

1) Three minutes into the game, Packer commented on the fact that ISU center Jared Homan, who ranks among the top three Big 12 players in average minutes played, was CLEARLY (not just tired, but) EXHAUSTED.

2) When analyzing a side-by-side chart of three point percentage for both teams, Packer commented that ISU was clearly hurt by its lack of ability to make shots from beyond the arc. Never mind, of course, that the Cyclones were actually shooting a higher percentage from three-point range than the Tar Heels, which could be easily understood if one actually read the graphic.

3) At one point during the second half, Packer began blathering on pointlessly about something that had to do with former ISU assistant basketball coach (from the 1980s) Steve Krafcicin. Who the hell knows why.

4) When going up for a layup in the second half, Cyclone guard Curtis Stinson stuck his elbow out a bit to draw contact, which Packer essentially labeled reprehensible. He proceeded to launch into a 10-minute diatribe about ISU's disgusting rough play (that's how we do it in the Big 12, jerk).

5) Along those same lines, when a foul was called after Cyclone Will Blalock kind of bumped Tar Heel guard Raymond Felton and Felton slid onto the court, Packer freaked out, attempting to imply that somehow Blalock's foul was some sort of thugtastic cheap-shot, and said UNC coach Roy Williams should really take Felton out of the game now before he got hurt. Never mind that the Heels only held a 13-point lead at the time. Packer had apparently forgotten to even look at the score. Even Nantz couldn't ignore that one, responding: "Um...well, Iowa State is kind of making a run and are only down 13, Billy."

UGH!

6) Perhaps the most hilarious (by hilarious I mean "so ridiculous that you can't even really get mad but instead just laugh") comment of the day came when he was attempting to console ISU fans. "Well, ISU might not get to St. Louis in basketball," he said, "but they got there in wrestling, and won their third-straight team title with five individual champions!"

Well, um...actually. OKLAHOMA State was the team that won its third national wrestling title, you moron. And thanks for reminding ISU fans of our poor performance in the national wrestling tourney, in which we placed 10th (lower than usual and much lower than expected) with NO individual champs. But thanks, anyway, you pittsnoggling asshat.

Go, Mississippi State. At least Packer can stop smooching Duke's butt if the Bulldogs knock them out.

"Banana Trauma" would be a good name for a rock band

A friend on a forum linked to this awesome Web site for the best thing you never knew you needed, The Banana Guard.

Some highlights from the Web site:

• The Banana Guard is available in nine colors, including glow in the dark. The best selling color is "Mellow Yellow."
• You can give someone a gift certificate for Banana Guards. (But that ruins all the fun of giving the Banana Guard as a gift and watching the recipient's face turn assorted colors and contort into a variety of expressions as s/he tries to figure out what in the heck s/he has just received.)
• Banana Guard's slogan is "Protect your banana!"
• From the FAQ:
  Q: Is there a battery attachment?
  A. No. The Banana Guard was designed for its intended purpose only as a device to prevent banana trauma during transport. ("Banana Trauma," I think Dave Barry would agree, would be an excellent name for a rock band.)

Oh, how I miss Dave's column; I'd be all over sending him the Banana Guard link.

The Joys of House Hunting

So, we've been shopping around for a new house. I love looking at houses, but sometimes I just have to laugh at the choices we are offered. A few tips if you've got your house on the market:

1) If the only new item you've purchased for your home in the last 50 years is one of those chirping bird clocks you can buy "as seen on TV," it's probably not going to be too appealing to prospective buyers, particularly ones under the age of 65. Not that we're not happy you take good care of your green shag carpeting. And no, it doesn't need to be replaced...

2) You may want to consider washing your dishes and picking up any clothes that happen to be strewn all over the floor of your bedroom, guest room, laundry room, and living room. I didn't think this was something you would have to put on a list of tips, but surprise! -- It is!

3) If you are a smoker trying to sell your home, it may be best to start smoking outside the house so that visitors can actually breathe in your house without gagging. Oh yeah, and if you have emphysema as a result of your excessive smoking, it might be a good idea to empty your bag of disgusting Kleenex tissues before folks come over.

4) If you own eleven thousand freaky ass dolls, I would recommend packing them in a box or hiding them in a closet before people start touring your home.

Just a few ideas I'm throwing out there.