Enough already about Sarah Palin

I am considering throwing an Obama/Biden fundraiser at my home for my friends. We will each donate $25 to Joe-bama and then drink heavily while bitching about the Republicans.

I think it will be a keen old time.

I love books

I started reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao the other night (for book club,) and I was having a really difficult time with it. There was something about the book that made me feel like I was fighting it. I realized, as a took a break to make a cup of tea, that it is the first book that I have read in months that hasn't either been written in 19th century England or is about 19th century England.
Of course my brain was having problems processing: it was operating a hundred years out of its normal mode! Clearly I was not in the best zone for reading about 20th century New Jersey and Dominican Republic.

Rambling on about nothing much...

I haven't had really much to say of late. Things at the office are super busy, and I spend most of my free time reading about the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and getting myself really upset about the upcoming election, which isn't a very productive thing to be doing.

I watched The Bank Job last night after having the dvd from Netflix for nearly a month. I have found that watching those kind of suspenseful scenes in heist movies that normally make me want to run into another room with a bag over my head are much more endurable when you have them on fast-forward with the closed captioning on. You get the plot development without the heart attack.

I have given up eating desserts and in between meals in an attempt to lose 10 pounds before I go on vacation in October. I have lost 2 pounds already in just one week. This is very promising, but I am also concerned. Have I really been eating that much dessert? That cannot be a good thing. Every time I am tempted to help myself to something sweet or just cave in and run to CVS for some M&Ms, I take a look at some film actress I admire and think to myself, "does Cate Blanchett eat dessert?" Probably, but if she does, it doesn't show. It isn't really the most healthy way to wean myself off the sweets, but I am 8 days into this and haven't caved so far.

I can't believe the summer is over. August was such a beautiful month, weather wise. I love the fall, but I wouldn't mind having a few month of those lovely August days before the days start getting really short and the cold weather arrives.

Speaking of which, on my last day of vacation, I was driving up back roads in Lennox, MA to go to Tanglewood, and a mama bear and her two cubs ran out in front of the car ahead of me to cross the road. When I first saw the mother, I didn't really get a good look at it so I thought "that is a big dog." Then I saw the two cubs come out of the woods to follow their mother across the road and said out loud "that's no dog!!" I had to call Sister K to tell her since she had a bear in her neighborhood last fall. It was a good thing we were all obeying the speed limit.

My incredibly shrinking hair

I have very thick, very straight hair and after growing it for most of the summer and fall, it had gotten ridiculously long by Christmastime.


I liked the way it looked during the winter, provided I took the time to style or curl it every day. By springtime though and early summer, the humidity and the weight of my hair made that a problem, so I had 2.5 inches taken off the bottom so that it hit my shoulders.


Two weeks ago, I could no longer stand the horror that my hair had become so another 2 inches were taken off the length and I was left with hair just below my chin. And I am one happy camper!!

What I did on my summer vacation...

Or well at least part of it anyhow...

I was down on the Cape...




And then on Nantucket...


And then back on the Cape...




And it was LOVELY.

It's a Wicked Pissah

So last night after work, I drive over to my favorite supermarket, the Shaw's at Brighton Mills. Recently, they have been doing some renovations to the store, which has made it a little bit tricky to figure where one actually finds the pasta, for example. (There is no longer a fancy international aisle, but there is an Italian section; oddly enough, that is where the canned tomatoes are too. Why they are not with the rest of the canned fruits and vegetables, I don't know. But I digress.)

The renovations on the whole are aesthetically pleasing, but not the best structurally (some of the aisles are too narrow while others are huge). The lighting seems to be better, and with everything being new, the store is clean and pretty.

It wasn't until I went to check out of the store that I noticed something big. Something bigger than the new deli counter or the new pharmacy area. According to all the registers, my Shaw's was now a Star Market! Again. Somehow, I had completely missed the brand new sign on the front of the store.

It was a Star when I first started shopping there, and it took me ages to get used to calling the store Shaw's, and now I love my Shaw's, and it is Star Market again. Did I miss an announcement about this? The Shaw's in Packard's Corner is still Shaw's; I made sure to check on my way into work today. I wonder if that is going to change back too?

I tell you one thing: they better not be getting rid of the Shaw's brand French Onion dip; it's a winnah!

Do I spend too much time on the internet?

My friend JR who knows how excited I am about going to see Hamlet in October sent me a link to McSweeney's HAMLET (FACEBOOK NEWS FEED EDITION). It is hilarious, and I thought I would share it. (This makes loads of sense if you are a Facebook person, not so much, if you aren't.)

A sample:
Hamlet thinks Ophelia might be happier in a convent.
Ophelia removed "moody princes" from her interests.
Hamlet posted an event: A Play That's Totally Fictional and In No Way About My Family
The king commented on Hamlet's play: "What is wrong with you?"
Polonius thinks this curtain looks like a good thing to hide behind.
Polonius is no longer online.

Lookee, it's David Tennant as Hamlet. SIGH. Two months to go.