President Obama

This country finally turned away from fear and embraced hope. We voted against the war and for a sane economic policy. We voted to rejoin the world. We just elected an African-American to our highest office—in a landslide. I am overjoyed.

I Need a Mister

So the other day, I e-mailed a freelancer to see if he wanted some work. He lives in California, and thrives on impossibly hot weather. Yes, he replied, he wanted the work, but he needed a little bit more time, as he and his family were headed off on vacation in Palm Springs. “It’s going to be hot, really hot,” he wrote, “but there are lots of swimming pools and misters.”

The heat here must have gotten to me, because it took me a bit to figure out what he meant. Misters? Men make things cool? I had this picture of Venetian gondolier-like men, in their stripey outfits, rushing hither and fro, fanning the good people of Palm Springs. The image made me laugh. Then I got it. Oh. Mist. Water. It’s not stripey men—it’s water.”

I wrote back the freelancer, granting the extra time. By way of conversation, I added, “It’s hot here, too. I think I’ll need a mister.”

This is what I got back from him:

So when you said you might need a “mister,” I wasn’t sure what you meant. Was that some East Coast way of referring to a date (I need a date)? Then I realized I had said there are “misters” in Palm Springs . So I didn't know if you were saying it would be hot in Boston, too, or you were making a play on words. In any case, it gave me five minutes of amusement, which is always nice.

Yes, amusement is nice.

The Sassy Sundries: My Week in Review

Well, that’s better. Instead of reporting on six months’ worth of news, I only have to recount seven measly days. I think I can handle that.

Wow! Blogville remembered me! Thanks for the response to my resurrection posts. You all make me feel so loved. It’s been great to read about how you’ve all been faring since I dropped off the face of cyberspace. I’d like to do it more, but I’m afraid I still work for the Interweb Nazis. I can’t visit you all as much as I’d like, but I’m trying.

What a great night. As I type, a beautiful full moon fills the sky outside my window. It rose a beautiful pink (I don’t care what Nick Drake says, it’s not going to get me) and now shines a pale yellow. I grilled me up some veggies earlier this evening and hung out on the patio. This weekend’s shaping up to be filled with Shakespeare on the Common, Somerville’s Art Beat, the beach, a Haymarket adventure, and friends. No complaints here.

Enough blabbing already. It’s time for the Sassy Sundries, my weekly tally of things personal, political, and nonsensical. It feels good to be doing this again.

The Obama campaign shows a complete lack of humor by trashing the New Yorker’s brilliant satirical cover. Man, we the readership are on your side. Relax already. Minus One

For the first time since the seventh grade, I have short hair. I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I’ve received nothing but compliments. It’s done a lot to erase the memory of that old beauty-school student hack job. Plus One

Job hunting. It sucks. Figures I’m finally ready to move on during the worst economy in forever. If anyone has any advice, please e-mail me. Minus Two

The Red Sox scrape their way into first place before the All-Star break. J.D. Drew gets the MVP for the All Star game, and A-Rod is fending off rumors about Madonna. Heh. Plus Three

Dumbass W opens up lands to oil drilling. Will it solve our energy crisis? Nope. Will it give welfare to greedy corporations? Yep. Minus Five

Hardboiled Wonderland at the End of the World. What took me so long to read this? What was I thinking? Genius. Will write more when I’ve read more. Plus Three

Had my boy juju going last weekend. I have no idea what kind of cosmic alignment took place, but I had several young men making a point of letting me know they appreciated me. Must remember to wear sundress more often. Plus One

Total Plus: 8
Total Minus: 8

TOTAL FOR THE WEEK: Even Steven

Coffee Bomb

So the other day, my coworker got an e-mail from her roommate. They’d had a bomb scare at her office. Someone saw something that looked like a pipe bomb. They saw something, and they said something.

Police, evacuations, bomb squad—oh my!

The deadly cause of all this mayhem? A thermos full of coffee. From my coworker’s roommate: “The bomb squad guy opened it and poured the coffee into a planter. Ha.”

Ah, Boston. First there was Lite Brite Terror, and now the Coffee Bomb.

The Sassy Sundries: Six Months (?!) of My Life in Review

I say, GODAMN! Six months, more, since I last tended this bloggy thing? Oh Holy Jesus. I can’t believe it.

Well, to tell you the truth, I do believe it. For one thing, Fresh Hell hasn’t let me forget it (see below for more about that fabulous lady). For another, even if you've forgotten all about me, I have thought about you denizens of Blogville a lot these last months. Robyn, I hadn’t checked that inbox in quite some time. Thanks for you concern—I am still alive, and all things considered, just fine and dandy. Dive, I miss you.

God, what a lot of pressure. The first post back has to be perfect. Or, at least that’s what I kept telling myself, which is why I haven’t posted for so long. Tonight, though, I say fuck it to that thought, because it’s high time I wrote something. And what better way for me to break back into blogging than with an extended version of the Sassy Sundries, my tally of things personal, political, and nonsensical. Without further ado, here are the Sassy Sundries for the last six months:

Call me Auntie Sassy. My sister had the cutest, coolest little boy on the planet back in March. Babies might not be my thing, but my goodness I love that little guy. He seems to dig me too. The last time he saw me, his face lit up, he smiled, and reached for me. He’s just great. I’ve dressed him up in homemade onesies with sayings like, “When two people love each other very much…” and “I ate, slept, and pooped today!” Styling baby, Nephew is. Plus Twenty

Now that Mom’s officially Grammy, she’s been dropping not-so-subtle hints that it’s high time for me to settle down. Had a bit of a rough visit this past weekend. I called her up tonight, though, and we seem to have sorted things out. Three cheers for therapy! Minus Two

Knudsen scares me. He predicted a McCain presidency way back when, and I hope to Everything that his prediction was only true for the nomination. Come on, Obama! We need you! Minus Two for the prediction; Plus Three for hoping we get us some change.

Speaking of politics, what happened to our Democratic majority in Congress? I just checked the news, and they caved to Dumb W about warrantless wiretapping. Ever heard of the Fourth Amendment, people? And why are we still funding that illegal, pointless war? Minus Ten

Fresh Hell and I have become fast friends, proof that Blogville camaraderie can exist in reality. Love you, Lady. And, Andraste, the three of us are due for some beer! Plus Twenty

Blogging wasn’t the only thing I took a break from. Aside from the Australia Day Smooching Incident, and a wee little Irish fellow asking me, “Do you want to go home and fuck?” (priceless accent—but the line still didn’t work) after a night of heavy drinking with Fresh, I hadn’t had any hint of dating action since the holidays until last week. Alas, the "date" was a setup, and there was no chemistry whatsoever. Still, we made the best of it and us a fine old time, laughing about how we didn’t want to get into one another’s knickers. It might not have been a real date, but the seal’s broken, and I think I might be ready to risk my heart again. Even

So it only happened because Little Blue Peep finally bit the dust, but I’m still happy to say that I’ve reduced my carbon footprint. Now that I’m sans car, things take a little bit more planning to happen, but I’m managing just fine. My Sudoku skills have definitely improved. Plus Three

OK, so the Sox are in second place? There’s still time. And we’re not second to the Yankees. Even

Total Plus: 46
Total Minus: 14

TOTAL FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS OF MY LIFE: +32

Please Excuse Sassy Sundry

Dear Blogville,

Please excuse Sassy Sundry’s lack of posting of late. She has had a hard month.

It all started when her car’s windshield wipers failed on her during a snowstorm. Thankfully, she hadn’t gotten far, and so she was safe, but she had to fix them. She was hoping to get through the toughest part of winter with her old jalopy with the Peacemonger sticker on it before making the decision to go car-free. To do that, she needed to replace the wipers. Also, the headlight that had decided to die on her. So, she brought it to the shop. Turns out that it wasn’t just a simple repair, and it was going to cost her four hundred Benjamins to fix. Two hours after begrudgingly telling her mechanic to go ahead, her grease monkey called her. “The good news is that we made the repairs,” he said. “The bad news is that my next customer backed into your car and smashed the front end.”

For three long weeks, she endured endless commutes, becoming intimately familiar with the bus (she has not yet succeeded in securing employment that would make the car-free lifestyle manageable). She left every morning at Satan’s Witching Hour and returned home exhausted. Blogging about anything other than, “Tired. Grumpy. Wish to kill people” was untenable. When she finally got her car back, her joy was unfettered. At last, I can blog again!

Not so fast, the Technical Difficulties Banshees deemed, for that Saturday, her Internet connection (the free one) came to a bitter end. It took two weeks for the high speed (ha!) Internet people to save her from her plight. Now, at long last, she has the keys to the Information Superhighway once more. She hopes to get back up to speed with you all soon.

Please forgive her. The weather is cold, she is tired, and her heart is heavy. She misses you all dearly.

Signed,

Sassy’s Third Person

Life, Liberty, and ROUNDHOUSE for Jesus!

Confession time. After seven long years of Dumb W’s war-mongering horror show and one long year of presidential debates, this political junkie finally overdosed on the whole thing. I just wasn't able to bring myself to obsess over the primaries.

For one thing, I didn’t really like any Democratic candidate. Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War and took a long time to back down from her support of it. I don’t think that Barack Obama has the experience necessary to lead the country. John Edwards doesn’t stand a chance in a national race. And, in addition to being a very late convert to a pro-choice position, Kucinich is a bit of a odd one. With choices like these, it was hard for me to get excited.

For another thing, I no longer live in New Hampshire. I figured that my primary vote will come too late to make much of a difference. Without much at stake with this vote, I thought that I may as well vote for a woman for president. It’s about time. That settled in my mind, I pretty much stopped paying close attention. I already knew that I'd vote for the Democratic nominee. It's their race to lose, right?

Maybe not. I might not have been obsessed with the primaries, but I wasn't completely out of the loop. In the last couple of months, Mike Huckabee caught my politically lazy eye and made me nervous. And damnit, if he didn’t win the Republican Iowa Caucus. Huckabee has charismatic charm reminiscent of another right-wing fascist fellow. Americans are suckers for charm, no matter what kind of anti-science, anti-choice, anti-secular society, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-everything-that-we’re-supposed-to-stand-for face it masks. We had eight years of Reagan, and Dumb W rode on those coat tails. Huckabee is a problem.

Like I said, he got my attention. Among other things, I knew that he had been running some ads with Chuck Norris. I thought it was something of a joke, rather like that blender guy. But after watching Huckabee’s victory speech, I’m not so sure. Yes, that was CHUCK NORRIS standing right behind Huckabee when he gave his victory speech in Iowa—and it wasn’t a gag on Conan O’Brien. There was no lever. Does America really want a president, however charming he may be, who stands tall with Chuck Norris? Life, liberty, and ROUNDHOUSE for Jesus! Really?

Oh shit.

Travels with Fluff: Where in the Hell is Carmen, San Diego?

Happy New Year! Not much new here. Went out, drank too much, and spent New Year’s Day on the couch watching movies, thinking that it was about time I did my promised Fluff post. As some of you know, Little Sassy Schmoozer dragged me off to San Diego in November for a big conference. What a taskmaster! She had me glad-handing so many people, and she hardly let Fluff and me out of her sight to do the tourist thing. So, the pictures aren’t so good—and they’re all in the Gaslamp Quarter—but here they are.

Fluff went to Lee’s Café for breakfast one day. Lee’s Café is a rather amazing place. It’s a Chinese diner, meaning that they’ll do your eggs any way you like, or you can get Chinese food. You can also get cereal.

When Young Coworker and I followed Fluff into Lee’s, there were about ten men of various ages and backgrounds hunched silently over coffee and food. We knew we were in for a treat. It was fantastic.

An “Authentic Irish Pub” in San Diego. Because California is so like Ireland.

Yeah, yeah, Wyatt Earp.

Yikes! Fluff thought that maybe Fluff was illegal. We gave them the slip.

That’s it. I hate Little Sassy Schmoozer. She doesn’t let me have any fun. My Memphis friend and I are discussing taking a little trip somewhere exciting sometime soon, however, and LSS is not invited.

If you're new to Travels with Fluff, check out the link under Favorite Posts. Fluff gets around.