FizzyLizzy

Yesterday was just one of those days. The car refused to start; would you at -14? And of course I needed to be up at school to make my penultimate art presentation. Fortunately, Paul hadn't left for work yet...unfortunately I couldn't find anyone to score a ride home from and walked 3 blocks in said -14 degrees. My dad brought me his car so I could do my last presentation at school, bring the art set back to the Art Institute, and pick up Katherine from her after-school activity. In the meantime, one of the parts of the art set went missing--a laminated piece of paper that they'll charge us $10 to replace--and I lost an earring that I really liked. And while driving their car back, we saw a dead opossum near my parents' house. What is it about seeing dead animals on days like that?

Things are shaping up today. It's +11. Paul got AAA to start my car this morning. The earring I lost miraculously found it's way back to me through William. And I haven't seen any dead animals. Now if I could only find that stupid piece of laminated paper...

Update 1 Feb: Art set thing has been located.

Some more people with too much time on their hands and a little too much ire.

...scrapbooking? Hmm, sounds like even the scrapbooking hobby doesn't occupy enough of some people's time.

Just got a phone call from Al Franken. Of course it was very cutesy: "This is Al Franken...okay this is a recording of Al Franken." An invitation to meet him at a neighborhood coffee shop. Think I'll pass.

After playing this game at some friends' house, I bought it for Paul at Target. Except that the version I bought has the words "contre les lapins cretins" (against the crazy rabbits) in between Rayman and Raving Rabbids. It gave me a moment of pause in the store. But I thought to myself, "Well, it's just made for sale in Canada, right?" Paul opened it and the manual is only in French. Je vais retourner le jeu video au Target et j'acheterai un jeu avec les instructions en Anglais.

If you live in these parts you may have seen this ad. Oh, I know it's all tongue in cheek and he's really winking at us all the while. (Nevermind the grandmotherly teacher who was probably fresh out of college when Franken had her nearly 50 years ago.) But there's just something unseemly about it. Like he's trying to remind us that he's from here when he's not really "from here" anymore. Kind of makes me feel like he's picked us as his best bet to get to Washington, and it makes me feel used. Maybe I'm just sensitive about it because St. Louis Park is my hometown. I actually met Franken's brother Owen once. He came to speak at our school about his experiences as a photojournalist in the Mid-East. He was really cool...I asked for his autograph. (And got it.)

On principal, I am against stores that want you to pay them for your loyalty by buying their "membership" cards. Included in this is Costco, which won't even allow you to give them your money until you've paid them to shop there. While I'm sure that many people save a lot of money there, Costco's image in my mind probably isn't helped by my mother-in-law, who regularly buys cakes that can serve 50 or a 20-inch-round cheesecake for family gatherings of a dozen or so. She loves Costco so much that, bewildered by my non-plussed attitude towards the store, she added me to her membership. I went there for the first time, a couple of days ago. Eh. I suppose I might be more into it if we lived nearer. (I'll just have to visit you more often, Mrs. Bickerson!) And I was disappointed in their selection of Wii games, the main purpose of my interest in going there. Well, when you see me hauling 96-bottle cases of Vitamin Water into our tiny abode...just don't say, "I told you so."

While you've probably become used to my sporadic posting, you can expect it to continue at least through the month of January, as the !#$%&* art program I run up at school is taking place this month.

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and after.