Aha!
The possum was alive in 1959, this photograph clearly shows!
I knew it was evil!
Possum Was Evil, Immortal
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Monthly Archives: February 2009
Having a Baby
"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." – Hamlet
I had a nightmare last night.
I dreamed I was taking a test in school, a very difficult test I hadn’t studied for, about recipes. The test questions were ridiculously detailed, asking how many cups of sugar for one recipe and how many cups of flour for another.
I knew I was going to fail.
And the worst part was not having something everyone else in the class who was taking the test had: a baby. Every single other young woman in the room was taking the test while holding onto a baby in one arm. All the babies were sleeping.
I was given a baby when I walked into the room, but my baby kept fussing and babbling and it was taken away from me.
Not only was I about to fail the test, I was about to fail and my baby had been taken away from me.
Now, time to play armchair psychologist on myself.
Subconsciously I must feel I am failing at life because I cannot remember how to cook, am terribly unprepared for life’s tests and have no baby.
… I don’t have to remember how to cook, though. That’s why I have recipe cards, the backs of cake mix boxes (which I only sort of listen to, and then add a bunch of stuff anyway) and the internet.
Have a better interpretation? Post it here. Make me giggle!
New Scam Makes the Rural Rounds
Apparently people are picking up other people’s bags and other people’s purchases at discount stores in Grand Forks.
Here’s a link to the email that’s been circulating around, from Grand Forks’ Prairie Justice blog.
I checked Snopes.com rather extensively to see if I could find anything about this being a hoax, but as far as I can tell, it isn’t. You’re free to check yourself, if you like.
Now if someone actually does this to you, keep in mind that it could really be an accident. If I carried purses, which I don’t, I would absolutely be absent minded enough to pick up someone else’s similar purse instead of, or even in addition to, my own.
Occasionally I find books in my fridge or in cupboards.
Yet Another Darn Winter Storm
Another spate of horrible weather is due to come zooming in on us tomorrow morning, so be sure your hatches are duly battened in preparation.
And it’s not a plain old vanilla snowstorm, either, but a nasty concoction of sleet, freezing rain and snow, with a nasty wind chill thrown in just for fun. The National Weather Service isn’t predicting fiery hail or a rain of frogs or anything really bad, but they are telling people to watch the weather and, if you read between the lines, to please not do anything stupid.
On the bright side, this may eliminate some of the hideous snirt that has been struggling to maintain a hold on people’s lawns.
Unfortunately, anything new will just turn into more snirt later on… but I suppose we should happily take our respite while we can. February and March are ugly here and in the end, we just have to take it.
The Bible and the Judge
Like many other readers, I enjoy crime stories, even though it’s kind of scary when they’re local crime stories. You wonder if it could happen to you.
One of the things I like about the local ones, though, is getting to read the intelligent and often acerbic words of Judge Jeffrey Flynn (shown at left). I haven’t formally met Judge Flynn, but he has a lot of common sense, and as far as I can tell from the newspaper articles, an excellent knowledge of his field.
I had the opportunity to listen to Judge Flynn at the legislative meeting last Friday, and I think he was by far the most quotable person who spoke there. So many people spoke at the meeting that day that I couldn’t quote the judge as extensively as I would have liked, so I included the entirety of what he said to the legislators as an MP3 online.
If you want to give it a listen, click here and scroll down a bit and to the left. It’s well worth listening to the whole thing. Flynn makes an intelligent and eloquent appeal to the lawmakers explaining why cutting the court system would likely cost the State of Minnesota more in the long run. Much of his very brief talk concerns the absolute necessity of court interpreters in the area and how funding cuts would affect the local courts — and the local people.
I quite enjoyed Flynn’s acerbic (but friendly) jab at the legislators reminding them that they can’t walk on water, but I enjoyed even more his reference to feeling like a "voice in the wilderness" when he talks about these issues.
Several New Testament verses refer back to the "voice in the wilderness" phrase in Isaiah 40.
Sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness too.
The Oscars
I didn’t catch all of the Oscars. What I did catch, though, were some of the most-talked-about moments, such as Ben Stiller’s weird and funny Joaquin Phoenix impression (left), the Ledger family accepting Heath’s posthumous award for him and the strange, vaguely off-putting musical number with Hugh Jackman and Beyonce Knowles.
Anyone who knows me knows I have opinions about everything, so here are my opinions on the snippets of the Oscar show that I saw.
Stiller’s impression of Phoenix was dead-on and hilarious.
That said, he shouldn’t have wandered around behind Natalie Portman. It was distracting and kind of weird in a way that even Phoenix on Letterman wasn’t. (Which is saying something.)
The Ledgers were wonderful. His mom and sister didn’t sashay down the aisle like overdone underfed starlets,
but like normal people forced into lovely but slightly uncomfortable dresses. When the women and Ledger’s dad accepted the Oscar, they didn’t wax sentimental or trite, but just spoke with genuine feeling. They and Ledger’s dad accepted the award for Heath’s child, and not for themselves, and maybe that just made it all the better.
The musical numbers: I missed the first one but was lucky enough (?) to catch the one in the middle (shown at right in an AP photo).
I didn’t like it.
And after half a day of occasionally thinking about it, I’m still not sure why. Beyonce can sing. Jackman can sing. They can both dance, too, and do it really well. They made a cute pair, even if it was a distinctly odd idea to put them together in the first place.
Yet inexplicably, I did not like it. I think it was the mish-mash of all the different songs from musicals over decades and decades and the whole "The musical is back" thing.
Newsflash: The musical has been back since Chicago (2002) and Moulin Rouge (2001). The fact that the Academy is apparently 7-8 years behind the times doesn’t really surprise me, but it does irritate me in some way I can’t quite define.
Also, I didn’t like the way the song medley was arranged. The good songs only had a line or two.
The songs I’d never heard of (and no, I’m not a cultural noob) seemed to go on and on, with a "Maria!" randomly sprinkled in for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Sorry, Baz, you lost me on that arrangement.
Also, what the heck was up with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s stupid hat?
The Possum Returns… for REVENGE
I exaggerate, I admit it.
But after coming home one snowy night this weekend I happened to notice something curious in the driveway. In a straight line from one side of the driveway into my apartment manager’s garage were some markings in the fresh snow.
Tracks.
Now I’m not Sheena Queen of the Jungle here, and I don’t know what made those tracks, but I do know one thing:
They were the exact size of a Certain Possum’s feet.
New Feature for the Paper
And when I say "paper" I mean the paper paper, not the online paper.
It’s been in the works for a long, long time, but thanks to Julie Buntjer’s awesome design skills (MAD LAYOUT SKILLZ!!!) and the editor’s willingness to try new things and fiddle with the overall layout of the paper, specifically, what goes on what pages… we will roll out the Shiny New Thing on Monday.
Barring accidents, technical glitches, a massively massive news story or marauding possums, of course.
I won’t give you any details and spoil the surprise, but be sure to grab a copy of the paper on Monday to see the new feature, which will let paper readers know what the online readers and bloggers (like me and the news staff) are up to.
Hopefully someone will ooh and ahh… if not, I’ll have to poke my poor mom until she does.
But I think it will be reeeeeeally cool.
Also on Monday, look in the paper or on the Globe’s site for my article on the expansion of the local bakery, Panaderia Mi Tierra.
I got to hang out there this morning sipping coffee and eating tasty, fattening food while discussing said delicious food.
And that’s my job.
Wildlife Where It Does Not Belong
My friend from Colorado found a mouse in his car.
He’s kinder than me; I’d have put a fifty-cent trap out and the poor little cute thing would be dead. He, having more patience and less fear of rabid mousebites, caught the mouse and set it free in a park near a nice shrub.
I will not drive cars with a mouse.
I will not keep voles in my house.
I will not feed mice toast and jam
I will not drive them, Sam-I-Am.
Truth, Stranger than Fiction
I dreamed two dreams Tuesday night.
In one of them, I was absolutely horrified to find out that I was going bald. And only on the top, like a man, which made it ever so much more mortifying. I believe I decided to always, always wear hats for the rest of my life.
In the other dream, which was less nightmarish, I was at a mansion and they had a weird, modernized room with an unusual feature: a bed shaped like a Viking longboat. You know, the ones they put their kings in after they die, and then set on fire as they float down the river. Or so movies lead me to believe.
A bed shaped like a Viking longboat would be cool. I think I dreamed it due to the kittens.
