3 Ring Binder

We've owned our car for two years and just found out that it has an Automatic Sound Levelizer.  Apparently the adults who drive the car suffer from an acute lack of curiosity that the newly-promoted-from-back-seat-to-front-seat child does not.  That’s kind of sad, really, but the discovery has added a bit of auditory thrill to our acceleration/deceleration cycles.  Okay, maybe that's kind of sad, too.  In other news, our car also has intermittent windshield wipers and automatic windows, both of which we recognized right away. 

I love my giraffe print purse purchased on the streets of New York several years ago. It’s big and strong enough, and has a good top zipper and a bold, yet neutral colored animal print on it. What more could I ask for? Sadly, it’s time to say goodbye to that purse. She has served me well, but my constant flinging her about onto rough surfaces has caused the bottom to fray. Sad. I know.  But I was all excited by the challenge of finding a subtle animal texture , but more boldly-colored purse, like my toxic green snakeskin.  How I loved that fake Prada purse. Anyway, with the fall fast approaching, I had my heart set on orange or red. Red crocodile to be precise, with silver metallic accents (I don’t like gold plated things).  After weeks of online searching – and finding in the $200-$300 price range! – I decided to hit the local stores.  Lo’ and behold, I found a red croc cross-strap purse with excellent compartments that spoke to me.  It was only when I got...

I would have used the hyphenated word had I wanted to discuss a quaint walk-up in the Shire. Alas, this is truly about a  foot on the ground : specifically my bare foot on the hot, hot ground. Yes, this is about burn/friction blisters the size of half-dollars on the both feet from barefoot running! It was only a 400m barefoot warm-up run, which I have done several times since the barefoot running clinic.  Some of the time it was at 7 in the morning or 7 at night, but the initial barefoot run was done at 3:00 on a wicked hot day!  At 3:00 the heat is radiating back from the pavement surface making it even hotter, and yet, I had no problem on that day. Yesterday, however, I burned the hell out of both feet. I will spare you further description except to add that I am walking like a fragile old lady trying not to pop the gigantic blisters and invite infection which results in death ( as warned by my mother ). The good news is that the huge blisters are in the right sp...

After a week or so of being unable to work our On-Demand movie delivery system—near as we can figure, I broke the box with my incessant demands—I headed to our local cable company to get a new box as was recommended by the Help Line folks. The snow/rain mixture yesterday was perfect for a New England April Fools, but since my car was in the garage, I didn’t really pay attention to the weather conditions outside. Upon arriving in the cable company parking lot, I realized that I didn’t want to return my reportedly faulty cable equipment wet, so I slipped the 10"x7"x1" black box into the front of my coat and walked to the door. Once inside the lobby, I was greeted by the receptionist who asked if she could help me.   As I reached into my coat to retrieve my broken cable box in order to explain the situation, I must have hesitated in my explanation of needing to return it for another. When I finished my one sentence, she looked at me, startled, and finally said, “You scare...

1.        Why does liquid hand soap sometimes smell like formaldehyde? 2.        Why isn’t there a Rosetta Stone for accents? 3.        Why do some people report the inches of snow they’ve gotten as if local weather events were an achievement of theirs?

I knew there was Gentian violet in the formula . Yet, somehow, I was not moved to put down newspaper when spraying the feet of one of my chickens who apparently had become the victim of something (most likely another chicken). Now I have this lovely modern art exhibit permanently installed in my mud room – until I repaint. Upon finding me laughing at my own stupidity while attempting to clean it up, my husband noted the titular truism and then said, “I’m just glad I didn’t do it.” And the chicken? She is getting personalized attention, exotic spa treatments (her name is Barbie), and should be re coop erated fully by Monday.  

I took Anatomy and Physiology in high school. I successfully graduated from college and graduate school which included some biology classes. I enjoy great literature. I have never thought of myself as stupid, but as sure as I'm sitting here typing this admission, last night I was ready to argue that women had one more set of ribs than men! Was this a hole in my education? Was I home sick from school that day? Did I learn the truth and then supplant it over time with the more deeply rooted biblical stories from my youth? Why hasn't this come up since then? These are just some of the questions that have been racking my brain since last night. The number of ribs was noted by the Flemish anatomist Vesalius in his key work of anatomy De humani corporis fabrica in 1543 , setting off a wave of controversy, as it was traditionally assumed from the Biblical story of Adam and Eve that men's ribs would number one fewer than women's. [1] A small portion of people have one ext...

LB's home office tip of the day: Do NOT keep time to your daughter's violin practice with your touch pad finger unless you want 17 instantiations of Outlook on your desk top. Just call me Hell, Louise?!

LB's homemaking tip of the day: Do NOT pour egg whites down the drain followed immediately by a hot water chaser. Just call me Hell, Louise?!

In addition to being 9 / 10ths of the law it would certainly explain my instantaneous digitus impudicus response to some kid who was cruising down our street today at about 40 mph. Because the speed limit is 25 and my oldest daughter and I were walking on our street and because I am nothing if not a paragon of adult responsibility, I yelled at him to slow down as he cruised by me. And he flipped me off! It was then that I lost all credibility with a sudden POOF! and returned his gesture and apparently, to my ill-spent youth. I have no other explanation. It’s a good thing I wasn’t arrested . On the bright side, I found out who the little punk was and that he just got his license. My question is, does my momentary immaturity disqualify me from an adult follow-up role in this case? Or... do you think his parents would be interested to hear about his fast, one-handed driving habits? Eeeee-heee-heee-heee-hee. (Now there’s a chin!) Clearly, I'm not over the immaturity thing yet. I...

How ridiculous! That’s about the best thing I can say about Dunkin’ Donuts' decision to pull print ads with Rachael Ray wearing a scarf which apparently resembles a kaffiyeh, a traditional Arab male headdress. While one may question Ms. Ray’s sartorial judgment in wearing a scarf around her neck in what is obviously beautiful weather, whether or not she is showing support for terrorism is ludicrous. What disturbs me most is that conservative blogger Michelle Malkin is quoted at saying about the decision to pull the ad, "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists." She says this without batting an eyelash in the direction of the Muhammed cartoons. How can she not see it is this very same " sensitivity" which sacrificies our freedom of speech at the altar of political correctness? Finally, in honor of full disclosure, I own what is, according to Ms. Malkin, a kaffiyeh....

In a stellar display of primacy of consciousness, I ignored known rules of geometry yesterday. For whatever reason, I felt the need to describe a god’s eye to Stephen. (You kn ow, it’s one of those things where you wrap the multi-colored yarn around 2 sticks in the shape of a cross, or an "x", and end up with a square of multi-colored yarn wrapped around 2 sticks that you hang in your room until you’re 15, then chuck in a fit of “what was I thinking?”) I picked up the chalk and began to draw: first the sticks, at least showing an understanding of the order of operations, then the yarn. As I wrapped the chalk-line yarn around the stick-figure sticks knowing full well that developing a square of yarn was my goal, I began to force the yarn outward in between the sticks. Even though it seemed weird, I figured that it must be that way because the entire point of my drawing was to show the design of the square. It was only when Stephen pointed out that the yarn, as a line, would ru...