Unable to Concentrate...Science to the Rescue!

I'm willfully avoiding work, due to a severe case of Summer.

So, I'm reading instead.

Science can be very entertaining.

From BSG to BFO

Now, for all three of my readers who watch "Battlestar Galactica" you probably think I'm going to write about the season finale. No. I'm too upset that I'm being made to wait SIX MONTHS to see 12 more episodes so that I can watch them all die miserably or something equally depressing.

And, as far as Barack Frakkin' Obama, I'm too upset about his recent FISA/telecom immunity vote to write about how I snarked at the O-campaign volunteer who tried to recruit me last night. Poor kid. I chewed his ear off about gutting the Fourth Amendment and what a missed opportunity to really stand up for a true voice for change.

But, I'm not writing about that.

I'm actually going to write that fake 'n bake works! I'm pleasantly surprised. Now, for the uninitiated, that's dihydroxyacetone....AKA, fake tanner. It smells weird, but it makes your skin a lovely shade of toast...no cultivation of carcinoma necessary!

Despite the whole "stand-there-in-your-birthday-suit-sticky-while-it-dries" element, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I blame Coco Chanel, who, after her trip from Paris to Cannes, cultivated the tan among the previously belly-white upper class French. And the rest is dermatological history.

Okay, additional random flotsam and jetsam:
* Hubby has been quite the jet-setter with a trip to Vegas, then sailing on the floating wine rack. (The French really know how to build a boat.)
* Lord Covington rules. I never thought I'd love a car as much as I love LC. Wax puppets for everyone!
* Weather is interesting. It was 90 degrees in Providence on Saturday, yet an hour a way in Beantown, it was 65 and foggy.
* Weather is interesting, take two. I'm so done with this forecast, "Partly cloudy, humid, with a chance of severe thunderstorms in the morning. Clearing in the afternoon, but with a chance for more severe thunderstorms between 6 and 8." It's been three weeks now. This is not Florida.
* Work is still very silent, but I have a nice chair now.

And really, there isn't much else. Oh, wait, the Zoenator rules.

Welcome, Lord Covington Cooper of Cambridge

So, it's been a really long day. And, granted, I don't live in a bombed-out foxhole in Baghdad, so as days go, I suppose when I say "long", it's not that long.

I fetched Husband after work, and sat in miles and miles of traffic on our way to get Lord Covington Cooper of Cambridge (AKA, our new car, a Mini Cooper S Clubman). Yet, we were foiled: Just a mere 10 miles from our destination, the long-suffering BMW tossed a shoe.

Thank god I grew up in the north suburban bedroom community of Reading. We were conveniently located but a mere few miles from family, and placed a plaintive call for help. A Mum-bearing Volvo soon arrived. (Yes people, a 240DL wagon....what would you expect from my Mum?)

Husband went off to collect Lord Covington, and I stayed with the Beemer waiting for AAA.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Let's just say that no matter how long AAA tells you they will be, they always take at least and hour-and-a-half.

Needless to say, when all was said and done, I was provided for in a most comfortable fashion: Sister fetched me and offered a bottle of a fantastic chardonnay. Mum brought Husband to the car dealership and Lord Covington is now ensconced in our garage. The Beemer is in the capable hands of 128 Tire and Auto (the family mechanic) and shall be serviced accordingly.

All in all, you couldn't ask for a better night.

The hard part is: A day will come when I can't call that phone number and go, "Mum, can you come get me?"

But tonight I could.

Congratulations, Del and Phyllis!

You'd think that all this time in Massachusetts would have me taking gay marriage for granted and that I'm jaded old coot. Oh, wait, no I'm not! What a relief! How do I know? Because this morning I cried like I did at my own wedding upon hearing that Del Lyon and Phyllis Martin got married (again) by that handsome hunk of hetero-gay activism, SF Mayor Gavin Newsome.

Del and Phyllis could teach the rest of us a thing or two about longevity in partnership. They've been together for 55 years.

When love and truth are on your side, nothing is impossible.

An Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama

Dear Senator,
Congratulations.

Our country is so wounded and broken that I doubt anyone could fix it, so please be the person we can all rally around to heal it together. Please be the person we need you to be. Please surround yourself with smart, honest people. Please listen to those smart, honest people, especially when they disagree with you.

Please care. Please make us care again. Please let me believe that we can be the kind of country that our forebears hoped we could be. Please help us be proud to be Americans again.

Please bring home our troops. Please rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan and let them decide their own futures. Please make sure people in this country no longer have to work three jobs only to choose between rent and healthcare.

Please don't let me down.
Please be a good man.
Please beat John McCain's sorry ass in November.
Pleaes take care of yourself.