Do the Yak

I had a great talk with my cousin K. last night. She's the kind of person where even when you haven't talked in a long time, you pick right up where you left off, catch each other up on news and have some laughs. This was the first time in many years that we didn't at least talk by phone during the Oscars show; for a while there, I visited her in person so we could cook dinner, open a beer and root for our favorite stars, critique the host or hostess, marvel at the outfits, etc. Hopefully she and pretty much everyone else we've ever met will be able to come visit this summer after we're moved into our new house and host some sort of massive social event, or maybe lots of them, which would be great. I love having people over. Getting back to outfits, I check Go Fug Yourself from time to time but there's not usually anything downright shocking, except this recent entry , which should have made the young lady cringe in embarrassment except she was probably too sto

Just had the stitches removed from my gum after oral surgery two weeks ago. Another new midlife experience! My recommendation? Avoid it if at all possible. And if not possible, be ready with a snappy reply as to why your fat upper lip makes you look like a camel and you have bruises in various places on your face. My options were (a) "I was going to have oral surgery, but I got into a fight with the periodontist about the price and she slugged me," or (b) Ben and I have a very dynamic marriage. We had a frank exchange of views the other day..." Speaking of snappy comebacks, I came up with another one out of nowhere a few weeks ago -- no pause or conscious thought, just pure instinct. The scene: I was with the kids trying to park at the large but overcrowded local library. After cruising the parking lot to no avail, I saw a parallel-parking spot, so I went past it and braked preparatory to backing in. So the car behind me honked ONE MILLISECOND after I applied my brakes.

Yeah RIGHT. I come back from Florida and here it is, the coldest day of the frigging winter (7 degrees this morning and whistling, below-zero wind chill) in March. Plus my head is filled with cement from a cold which caused me to stay in bed yesterday, but not today, because we had to take the car in for service to repair the damage from the start of all this cold icy crap. This damage occurred the day after our only significant snow storm this winter, which was actually a mix of snow, freezing rain, slush, a bit of powdered snow and then the big-time deep freeze so it turned into jagged solid rock (see previous post). So Ben, all-around good guy that he is, went out a few minutes early the next morning to hack and scrape the aforementioned rock off our cars. At one point he lifted open the hatch on my car (Subaru Outback) but the ice had formed a solid barrier at the top near the hinges, causing this piece of trim (sort of a mini-spoiler) to snap right off, leaving the third brake lig