Sack o' Potatoes

I think I've written once or twice about my Las Vegas uncle and his child bride. He's my mom's elder brother, and will turn 62 in June. He is a survivor of the Vietnam war and a recent brawl with prostate cancer, and a dentist who specializes in doing work on and for the elderly. His diet is maniacally healthy, his main sources of exercise are regular walking and tango dancing, and he takes enormous pleasure in using "shocking" language and wearing garish shirts that appear to be imported from a Hawaiian tailor with dreams of outfitting the mafia. Basically, my uncles is a nice old guy who despite his basic goodness enjoys acting like an asshole.

His wife of several years is not yet 30, and a year older than my cousin Z, my uncle's up-to-this-point only child. See, when my uncle discovered he had cancer, he and his wife (who really is a very nice person, and who plainly loves my uncle very much--something I find confounding, but comforting) decided to take steps to ensure that no matter what might happen with his cancer, they could still have a baby if they one day felt it was right for them.

Fast-forward a year or two, when my uncle nearly choked to death swallowing one of his post-cancer horse pills, and his wife collapsed next to him on the kitchen floor realized tearfully that she wanted very much to have his child, to have something left of him in the likely event that he dies before she does.

He assented, and thanks to the wonders of medicine and technology, my newest first cousin was born--fully 25 years after my last first cousin. The Boy finds it hilarious that I have a cousin who's 40 years my junior, and I have to agree. The baby was born premature, weighing only three pounds, but healthy and gaining weight by the hour. She'll be able to leave the hospital in a month, and her parents are ecstatic. My mom is dubious about the event, feeling that her brother was irresponsible to give life to a child he won't see grow up, but had to admit I was right when I reminded her that no father can ever guarantee that he'll live to see his child grow up.

I'm happy for them, and am knitting a baby cocoon and hat combo for the wee thing. The yarn is a much nicer cotton than I normally knit with, silky soft, and I love the colors. As it's knitting up, though, I've noticed that while the word cocoon sounds lovely and snugly and made for swaddling, I am essentially knitting a sack to stuff a baby in. Congratulations on your tiny miracle--here's a bag you can shove her into! Mazel tov!

Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K

Remember how I said I was so in love with the Ninth Doctor? Well . . . that's kind of over. He's now someone I look back on fondly, like an old flame. David Tennant, however, has lodged himself into my head and heart as the Best Doctor Ever, and is now on my list of Secret Boyfriends, ahead of James Marsters, David Sedaris, and Alan Bennett. He's running neck and neck with Nathan Fillion, in fact, and would be a clear first if it weren't for the fact that the Fillion character I love so much is HUMAN, and therefore more accessible to me than Tennant's Time Lord. Yes, that's how these things get decided. Shut up.

I'm through the fourth season of Doctor Who, and now I have the series of specials to watch. I have decided that I won't be watching Season 6, as I don't like the looks of the kid who plays the Eleventh Doctor. He's too young, for one thing, and much too smirk-y, and he just rubs me the wrong way. I'll happily read about what happens, but I don't think I'll be watching.

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These two photos are of a single full-page ad in my local newspaper:
What an opportunity for romance! You GO, Denny's! You go! Can't you just feel the romance? Can't you hear Barry White in the background? Don't forget the coupon!

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I took this photo at the grocery store yesterday, as The Boy and I were standing in line at the deli counter. I noticed it first and pointed it out, and we both reached for our phones at the same time, to take a picture:


These were lovingly made with a label maker, and pasted carefully onto the handle of this shopping cart. Why? Some kind of public service announcement? I don't have a girl, so I couldn't punch her even if I did smoke weed. And where was Jerry Stone? Was he hiding amongst the produce? Was he spying on us? Or was the message meant for The Boy and me especially? My sister and ex-husband both shop at the same supermarket--maybe one of them was trying to tell us something? Or was it a secret code, meant to lead us to untold riches hidden behind the toilet paper?

The world may never know.

Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket

And I found it! My old wallet--I think I'd had it for five or six years--finally fell apart, and had to be replaced. Look how cute this new one is! It's the same size as my old one, which was important to me, because it fits in my pocket so I can go out without a purse if I need to, and it makes me happy whenever I see or touch it.

In other, non-wallet news, I went to Barnes & Noble today and came back with Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People, because I love Amy Sedaris and her completely wackadoo way of looking at things, and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, which jumped off the shelf at me. I couldn't think of why at first, but it's because BableBabe is reading it.

Both books and the wallet were paid for with gift cards I've been holding on to since Christmas, which means I got to go on a mini shopping spree without spending much money at all. Merry Christmas to me!

Conspicuous consumption aside, I don't have much going on these days. I've started watching the recent (2005, Ninth Doctor) run of Doctor Who on Netflix, and I'm really enjoying it (thanks, P!). The Doctor from the first series is wonderful and brilliant and fierce and dorky all at the same time, Rose is smart and brave and feisty but far from perfect, and the stories are fun and very well told. I'm well into the second series, and while it's kind of fun to see The Doctor played by the adorable (and I really do mean adorable) David Tennant, I haven't developed the love for him I have for his predecessor. P assures me this will change, and the show is so much fun that I'm happy to wait.

An incidental Doctor Who character I've really enjoyed (Harriet Jones, former back bencher MP for Flydale North and current Prime Minister) just showed up on Downton Abbey, which my friend K recommended and which I've been loving. Click the link, and you'll know immediately whether it's your cup of tea. If it is, you'll love it.

It seems I would consume no media unrelated to football, The Boy, or Joss Whedon if it weren't for the recommendations of my friends. I'm lucky they have such good taste.

Other than reading and watching endless good television, I've been writing a lot. The success of NaNoWriMo has given me the confidence to start another book, and . . . this one actually seems to be going somewhere. It's not pouring out of me at the breakneck pace of the NaNo book, but it's coming. And it's a hell of a lot more readable and interesting, let me tell you. Fingers crossed that I can keep up with it--because for me, it's all about having the discipline to sit down at the computer and work on it everyday. It's HARD. I'm LAZY. But this is important to me, so I think I can handle it.

Cross your fingers for me!

Stuff & Nonsense

I don't quite understand The Guardian Project. Is Stan Lee a big hockey fan? And while the guardians that I've seen look pretty cool, the Penguin turns me off because I never liked Cyclops from X-Men. How Jean Gray could prefer him to Wolverine always baffled me.

More important than my feelings for the Penguin, however, is my curiosity over some of the other teams' guardians. I mean, how tough can a Toronto Maple Leaf be made to look? Or a Blue Jacket? Or a Senator? Or a Duck? Or a . . . Blue? I suppose the Blue could be a bad-ass blues guy, with Dealt with the Devil-type powers. Or something. I dunno.

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Example #4,589,628 of The Boy making me proud: He was the only kid in his Spanish class who knew what a pince nez is, and how to pronounce and spell it. I'm pretty sure this has to do with our listening to Jim Dale read the Harry Potter books, because I think that's how I learned how to pronounce it.

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Oh! Happy New Year! It sounds weird to say that, since all the holiday stuff feels so long gone, but the year is only eleven days old, after all.

I will be 40 in six days. It sounds kind of weird to say *that*, too, but whatever. Maybe I'll finally start feeling like a grown woman? Maybe I'll wake up on Monday with a mad desire to wear pumps and lipstick? Time will tell.