Not exactly. I was live last week. This week I’m postdated. Witty quips about life and love all to come, right after I vaccum and change the litter box. Hahahahah. Hahahaha. Change the litter box. Ha, good one, huh A.? A. is falling off his big black office chair right now. Hahahahaha.

Caitlin is getting some press for her book of previously-published-everyone’s-already-read-them-yawn essays. Salon editor Joan Walsh got in her face; the NYTBR (skip the ad) went a little softer.

This Flanagan line, “When a woman works, something is lost,” gets pulled up a lot and then slugged in the head by mad moms like a Scooby Doo blow-up punching doll. Conversely, Linda Hirshman also made everyone mad when she said that when a woman doesn’t work, something is lost. The great eye-rolling debate.

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Because talking about toilet-cleaning or “housewifing” or To-Stay-Or-Not-To-Stay-At-Home, or whatever, is cool this week, here’s some more kinds of crazy fun: selected headlines from Frugal Homemaker! Wheeee!

• Build your own casserole!
• 9 Traits of Organized Kitchens!
• Organizing Magazine Information!
• Taking Control of Your Clutter!
• A Clean Bedroom, All the Time!
• Gift-in-a-jar Fundraising!
• End of Summer Memory List!

(There. Take all that to your next cocktail party! Who says we aren’t fun to talk to?)

I came to The Wiggles late because A. skipped them completely and G. just found them two months ago, but I am so totally hooked!  I wouldn’t have come clean except there’s a perfectly good explanation for it.  The NY Times explained it last Sunday — I’m immature!

“[The Wiggles] operate from the premise that a young child has a short attention span, is curious about a limited number of objects and activities, loves having a job to do and is thrilled by mastering basic movements.”

That is SO me! 

[Thanks, Mark.]

I forgot some stuff. For instance, kids with cameras hurrying off to a big waterfall.

A lizard … … and a wind farm …

A paleontologist + fossils.

but mostly this, and this … .

It’s called Deer and Lion, and you need a bunch of little pieces of square brown paper for the deer, and some bigger square light-brown pieces for lions.

1. Each player starts out with 5 deer, 1 lion. 
2. Scatter the deer over playing surface
3. Drop lion from 1.5 meters
4. If the lion touches any deer, they’re “caught” (i.e. ripped to gooey bloody shreds)
5. When the lion eats 4 deer, he gets a cub
6. The deer double (5 more) every generation (3 lion throws)
7. If the lion goes 2 generations (2 throws) without chewing up a deer, he starves — Go to Jail, Do Not Pass Go.

You can use the same rules for “Mice and Hawk.”  Ages 3-8.  Happy Hunting.

I’m here now, and saw this write-up in the paper last night. Of course I signed jr. up right away! (Italics, mine.)

“… Science Saturday, for kids 7 to 13, will focus on the three largest predators in the state … Cathy Nowak will bring heads, hides and other parts, and discuss tracks, predator adaptations and the ecology of predators.”

I could have picked some stuff up on the way here.  There were plenty of “parts” on the road between Long Creek and Ukiah.

Oregon’s a curious state, there’s so much out here untouched.  I start out in Portland today, headed to the Cretaceous period and all sign of life disappears on the 40 deserted miles from Wasco to nowhere.  Sage grass, sage brush, sage dust, juniper – literally untouched since the trail. We stop to water the horses in Condon, at maybe my favorite hotel in the state, even if they did totally screw up dinner plus freak out that we wanted dessert at good God — 8:00!  Nevermind how we got gipped out of morning muffins and fruit!  (A. right now taking pic of two crappy apples and stale coffee.)

More on all that later.  I bought them cheap digital cameras for the trip, and here’s one from Anthony, of his window as the world goes by.  And then some more.  (Don’t judge the quality, that’s their mother’s fault.)

 

Subject lines on emails from People I Don’t Know:

Cindy:  “If you thinks she’s spunky, cover your Monkey!”
Michelle:  “teresa, Firmer, Fuller breasts without surgery!”
GreetingWishes:  “Sears Cabinet Refacing, Free Estimate and Save $500″
Herbal-hike:  “Go for it, Dude”
Anthony:  “Call my cell”
Government Grants:  “Looks like you did it again, Teresa!”
Felicia:  “WE SLEPT TOGETHER”
Jeff:  “Fake Boobies”
Morris:  “Meet Single People in your Neighborhood”
Stephanie:  “Sex is cleaner with a packaged weiner”
Tracy:  “Porn site raffle”
Me:  “Teresa, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS?”
Becky:  “You can’t go wrong if you sheild your dong”
Lingerie Exclusive:  “Get free panties, now!”
Shocking News:  “Teresa, enhance your penis safely and naturally”
Car Quote Guys:  “Teresa, New Cars, Best Sticker Price”
Jason:  “Teresa, Reduce Your Debt in Minutes”
Collin Escamilla:  “You can reduce your debt in a slow economy”