Yesterday, I turned a corner in the drugstore as two extremely tall gentlemen turned another and ambled toward me. I was startled by just how tall they were and burst out laughing. The first man laughed and said, “Hi!” I followed the second man down an aisle toward the door and watched him duck his head to avoid a sign attached to the ceiling. The two men left and I stopped at the cash register, overjoyed. The cashier smiled from ear to ear.

Me: That was so exciting! I’m often the smallest person in every room, so that has to be a completely different life.
Kid: I’m adopted from Hungary, but when my parents came to get me they were the tallest people anyone there had ever seen.
Me: I was tall in Ecuador! Also, not to be disrespectful but seeing them brought back a really odd memory.
Kid: Like what?
Me: I went to high school with someone who was later a professional basketball player and one time I ran straight into his bellybutton.
Kid: Omigod, what happened?
Me: Well, after that, he always said hello in the hallways to the top of my head.

Photo: Bob Hosh.

Per Mr. Hosh: Perfect specimen of the “Destroying Angel” (Amanita bisporigera) the most toxic mushroom in North America. Found on a mountain trail last Saturday morning in Kings Gap State Park, PA.

First thing this morning, I dropped Pete’s socks and undershirts into the washing machine so he could hang them out on the clothesline. I don’t know why a poison mushroom made me think of that.

One hilarious side effect of working your tush off to – y’know – work your tush off is that your middle-aged weight shifts. Weight doesn’t melt off the way it used to. The pants that fit last week droop here and tug there; one or the other is vexing but both wreck your chances of putting together an outfit you don’t throw on your cubicle floor before lunch. By you I mean me, and of course if my clothes are on your cubicle floor, someone’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. Thus, my bras snapped like rubber bands, and by the grace of Foundation Garment Goddesses, replacements arrive on a UPS truck. About half usually fit. Back go the others. Replacements arrive. It sounds like an unending pain in the ass, but it’s miles better than the frantic public humiliationfest that is a Saturday afternoon trying on clothes in a department store dressing room with bad light and mirrors in Sensurround. Jesus Christ, remind me to do that if I need a shove off the ledge.

My co-workers are talking in one corner of the room about something wildly improbable, so I hit the Great Gazoogle and –

Wallabies get high in poppy fields, make crop circles

Jesus Donkeypunching Christ. Why do I get up in the morning? For stuff like this:

WALLABIES are breaking into Tasmania’s poppy fields and getting high. The strange occurrence, revealed in a State Government Budget Estimates hearing, has also solved what some growers say has spurred a campfire legend about mysterious crop circles that appear in northern Tasmania’s poppy paddocks.

In true X-Files-style, Attorney-General Lara Giddings said the drugged out wallabies had been found hopping around in circles squashing the poppies, creating the formations – and hence solving the mystery.

This morning, I was walking into the library and most of the sky was gray but a big part was a really beautiful blue-blue. Naturally, I thought, ‘I feel great! Crap!’ but we can also attribute that to getting up at stupid o’clock and making Pete take pictures of the squash blossoms in our backyard before dew evaporated, which I totally did. Stoned wallabees! I’m set till lunchtime.

Siobhan has mad cheesecake skilz.

Sometimes, what you need is precisely what you don’t. I know. The thought of it makes my eyebrows ache. Picture this: famous desert horrorscape and resort, where the problem is a little fresh water.

The parched moonscape, famous as the site of biblical Sodom and Gomorra, is the lowest point on earth and runs more than 60 miles through Israel and the West Bank. Large sections of the coast are fenced off and signposted in Hebrew and English: “danger, open pits” and “sinkhole area ahead.” But it’s too expensive to inspect every place for danger. Just two months ago an Israeli hiker wandered into an area that had no warning signs and was critically injured when he fell into a sinkhole.

While such accidents are rare, Raz says there are up to 3,000 open sinkholes along the coast and likely just as many that haven’t burst open yet. And they’re having a big impact on Israeli development plans.

The collapsing terrain has forced authorities to close a campground, date groves and a small naval base, and to scrap plans for 5,000 new hotel rooms, said Galit Cohen, director of environmental planning at the Ministry of the Environment. The holes, also found on the Jordanian side of the sea, are the result of the Dead Sea having shrunk by a third since the 1960s when Israel and Jordan built plants to divert water flowing through its main tributary, the Jordan River.

The holes form when a subterranean salt layer that once bordered the sea is dissolved by underground fresh water that follows the receding Dead Sea waters.

I’m no geologist, but it sounds like the earth’s surface may not be where the people walking around on it think it is. For safety’s sake, everyone should consider carrying around thirty-foot inflatable stilts and a bicycle pump. Taking into account the trouble our Northern European brethren are having with global warming and rising ocean levels, I bet you can find these useful appliances at Ikea. Or what about piping the stormy North Atlantic straight to the parched spa oasis, hmm?

I kind of live in fear of having to explain that was a joke.

Did you know there were such things as “mad cheesecake skilz”? Because I did not. This cake is covered with glitter dust. Richard Simmons was not harmed in the making of this cake – only in the eating of it.

What else is bugging me?

Kimberley Vlaeminck from the city of Kortrijk, 90 km (56 miles) northwest of Brussels said she fell asleep during the procedure, and woke up in pain when her nose was being tattooed.

But the 18-year-old was caught off camera on Dutch television when she said she quite liked the tattoo, but lied about asking for all 56 stars when she saw her father’s furious reaction.

A teenager lied, the sky is blue and this is news. That could bug anyone.

Some time ago, Grandpa took a dive and was found on the floor of his apartment. After a stint in the hospital, he moved to a swanky rehab joint where he instantly charmed the staff. That is his way. People love him up! On the other hand, Mom and Tom finally read the tea leaves and emptied Grandpa’s apartment last month. At first, this all seemed scary. Now, we’ve changed our minds. Hooray! Grandpa’s surrounded by people who dote on him madly! Hooray! It’s also frustrating, because I’m three hundred miles away and for some odd reason, he cannot hear the sound of my voice on the phone.

No, really. He hears Tom just fine. Grandpa makes jokes with Daria. He ignores Mom when she argues with him but he overhears plenty. Anyway, he can’t hear me, and when I call he becomes agitated about not understanding who’s on the phone. That is a great feeling I have to say I enjoy like dental surgery. So the other day, I mailed out a bunch of postcards someone more sonorous will read out loud. So far, they all say the same thing:

Dear Grandpa,
I love you!
Love,
Domy

Hopefully this amuses him. Another pile will go out next week, corresponding with my need to clean up my cubicle, where I possess an impressive collection of postcards from places I’ve never been, like Mr. DBK’s current locale, though I’m not very possessive. Thank you, Minneapolis. Say hi to my grandpa!

How did you spend your Memorial Day? Pete and I drove up to Hacklebarney State Park, hiked through the woods and along the creek banks in the mossy cool of a sun-dappled morning. The air smelled fresh and green. We met people walking the other way on the trails and everyone smiled. Leashed dogs capered in the creek to the frustration of fly fishermen. One of the most striking elements of hike was that people of all kinds greeted us with the same unguarded eyes. We took pictures like this one, rested on benches, and hiked off trail up rocky embankments. It was a test for my hip that my hip passed, then we ate sandwiches. On our way home, we stopped at the rose garden for a sunny walk, then we ate sandwiches. At home, we sang along with Pete Seeger while we prepared dinner, which turned out not to have a speck of meat in it. Essentially, we communed peacefully with nature, then ate it. Hooray!

Between the hike and the rose garden we stopped at a farm store. Pete got out and walked toward the building. I ran for the goat pen and stopped short. About twenty feet in front of me stood two benches. One one, a teenage boy slumped facing away from me, completely oblivious. Between the two benches stood a fully grown male goat, staring at me. I turned around and said, “Pete, get the camera.”

The goat trotted off to this tree, climbed up and started munching on the leaves about ten feet to my left. I’m just out of the frame here. I was overjoyed! A family of picnickers grabbed its little children up off the ground but nobody panicked. I looked around to see if employees had noticed the escapee but for a while no, I was standing there on the lawn between the stray goat, the picnickers and the parking lot, laughing like the goat was wearing last season’s cargo shorts. I mean, really. Finally, an employee appeared, walked past me and lunged at the goat, who appeared to say, Whoa, dude. Like, dude! and bolted for the chicken enclosure. I said, “That goat appears to know you.” He nodded and took off after the goat. For the next ten minutes, the goat bolted here and there and the employee gave chase. I almost swallowed my tongue! Inside the pen, baby goats capered with other kids. Their frenetic little tails gestured madly. I turned back toward the parking lot and realized the teenage boy on the bench was playing a video game and never noticed the goat standing next to him. I was at gamboling distance, but the boy was two feet away and saw nothing. Then we bought spinach.

Ever see yourself in a Lolcatz?

The neighbors are rebuilding a fence that recently failed to resist gravity in any meaningful way. An older, shirtless man I don’t know is directing a teenage boy in Hungarian. It is a beautiful language, full of nuance; I grew up hearing Hungarian spoken by my next door neighbor, a ballet teacher who fled Europe during the Revolution. The teenage boy, who last fall was the subject of an exciting police raid, is kind of handsome and thoroughly stupid. Yesterday, I took a vacation day and attempted the highly difficult mid-week sleep in. The boy’s car alarm went off at 8:00 and after an eternity, he finally shut it off. I hope it’s a good fence.

In a cyclical fashion, I get sick of dealing with someone. Recently, it was Verizon. I currently hate Verizon with such fiery passion that I forgot I hate Cablevision. I currently love Cablevision. When I think of Cablevision little hearts float over my head; such is my hatred of Verizon. So Pete and I canceled a bunch of services and went with Cablevision’s bundled cable/wifi/phone package, involving three of the four televisions in the house. I don’t have to plug my laptop into a phone line. Joy! We saved a bunch of money. Joy! Our one compromise was the attic TV, which used to get satellite TV. I used to row loudly and watch soap operas and cooking shows at an unholy volume. Surely, everyone benefitted from the wisdom of Pepin, whom my neighbors could not help but hear. I imagined them picturing his mother’s rustic corn pancakes. Anyway, now the attic TV is on one of those converter boxes everyone with a cable show urges you to get. I forget the absolutely-last-chance-no-more-freaking-chances deadline. It might be June 12th. If that’s true, June 13th is going to be a hell of a day, because these converter boxes don’t pick up much. We’re up pretty high. We get three NBC channels, and the best is Telemundo. Fortunately, I like Telemundo.

The morning show on weekdays features very excitable women talking about who the hell knows what in a language I don’t speak. In other words, it’s exactly like watching The Today Show. The other morning, I was plugging away on the exercise cycle and I looked down at the meters for a long minute. When I looked up, a completely different group of women were hopping up and down glamorously. The one on the right was freelancing with the choreography. Suddenly, everything went to commercial. Cue an old-fashioned girl gang beat down.

In the afternoons and evenings, I don’t know what I’m in for. One day, Caso Cerrado introduced the idea that a TV judge might sing her show’s introduction. A dating game – 12 Corazones – matches women of different zodiac signs with men of startling machismo. I think. I don’t speak Spanish but I know Miss Scorpio wanted to know about each Mexican wrestler’s pinning technique. Meeeeow! All of this is to say my gooey teenage love of Cablevision and hatred of Verizon brings me a good reason to listen luxuriously to Spanish almost every day, and if I listen I hear words, and when I hear words my brain is embiggening. Good for me! I am not sure the same happiness will happen in homes where airwaves fail to deliver strong signals and a wide variety of channels. A large number of small-scale disasters may be just around the bend. It’s hard to know if this will be important.

Raw Story, which for some reason reads like the Onion today:

UPDATE: Sen. Arlen Specter says he “conclusively misspoke” in his Times interview, after being asked about the quotation by Congressional Quarterly late Tuesday. “In the swirl of moving from one caucus to another, I have to get used to my new teammates,” he said. “I’m ordinarily pretty correct in what I say. I’ve made a career of being precise. I conclusively misspoke.”

Who he’s backing now? “I’m looking for more Democratic members. Nothing personal.”

Wheee!
Norm Coleman, R-Fantasyland, subject of Arlen’s invigorating blunder. See more obstructionist Republican clowns here.

You see, Arlen Spector switched teams but forgot that meant changing his team jersey. It caused quite a ruckus among people playing for Arlen’s new team. Even the cheerleaders were confused and, let me tell you, gum and condoms took flight. Oh, the humidity!

Anyway, I enjoyed that. A showing of true colors is comedy gold. But wait, there’s more! Am I dreaming?

Additionally, Democrats took away Specter’s seniority on the committees he serves on, the Washington Post reports:

In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate approved a resolution that added Specter to the Democratic side of the dais on the five committees on which he serves, an expected move that gives Democrats larger margins on key panels such as Judiciary and Appropriations.

But Democrats placed Specter in one of the two most junior slots on each of the five committees for the remainder of this Congress, which goes through December 2010. Democrats have suggested that they will consider revisiting Specter’s seniority claim at the committee level only after the midterm elections next year.

Senate Democrats did the right thing? There must be some mistake! No, says the Washington Post:

The Senate last night stripped Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) of his seniority on committees, a week after the 29-year veteran of the chamber quit the Republican Party to join the Democrats.

In announcing his move across the aisle last week, Specter asserted that Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) had assured him he would retain his seniority in the Senate and on the five committees on which he serves. Specter’s tenure ranked him ahead of all but seven Democrats.

Instead, though, on a voice vote last night, the Senate approved a resolution that made Specter the most junior Democrat on four committees for the remainder of this Congress. (He will rank second from last on the fifth, the Special Committee on Aging.) Reid himself read the resolution on the Senate floor, underscoring the reversal.

Democrats have suggested that they will consider revisiting Specter’s seniority claim at the committee level only after next year’s midterm elections.

I’m doing the Happy Dance! For once, the Democrats weren’t out-maneuvered in an easily foreseeable maneuvering!

The loss of seniority could prove costly to Specter in his campaign to win reelection in 2010, denying him the ability to distinguish himself from a newcomer in his ability to claim key positions.

Specter said last week that becoming chairman of the Appropriations Committee was a personal goal of his, and his Senate service seemed to put him in position to be the third-ranking Democrat there. Now, though, he will not hold even an Appropriations subcommittee chairmanship in 2011 – a critical foothold Specter has used to send billions of dollars to Pennsylvania.

I almost feel sorry for the selfish old coot. He’s the girl at the prom wearing a puce lace creation and tennis shoes. So yes, let’s dance.