It is Halloween Night, just hours before Dia de los Muertos, and despite the mountains of candy I purchased this weekend, our doorstep has yet to be graced by a single trick-or-treater. I think the word is out that truly creepy things have been happening at our house, and the kids are wisely keeping their distance. In fact our household has experienced an unusually high mortality rate this October. Here, then, is a tribute to those we have recently lost:
The NSA, we have recently learned, is collecting all sorts of data about all sorts of things, including email accounts. Senders, address lists, subject lines -- it's all fair game. As explained in one Washington Post article, "Taken together, the data would enable the NSA, if permitted, to draw detailed maps of a person’s life, as told by personal, professional, political and religious connections."
I don't imagine the NSA is drooling over my inbox in particular -- I'm pretty boring. But what could the NSA learn about me from my inbox, should the notion pop into its adorably furtive little institutional head? I took a hard, dispassionate look at my inbox to find out what they could learn, just from one representative 24-hour period:
1. Barack Obama is my best friend.
2. I am lonely. Very lonely. Apparently the mate of my dreams is senior:
My book group has caused me to burst into song -- proving once again that life really IS exactly like musical comedy, only with way slower reaction times.
We need a new toilet. Two, in fact. Which means that I am now confronted with the specter of toilet shopping.
We all have our gifts, and here are mine: I write very good thank you notes. I grow really beautiful lettuce. And I can bake any kind of muffin.
It is late at night, I am on a plane, and someone around me is having a bad gas attack.
The other day, Steve went to the market near his office to buy a few apples. The apples, he reported with dismay, were all from Chile or New Zealand. Why, in New England, in September, would anyone go to the trouble of importing apples from so far away? When our local orchards are chock-full in this record-harvest year?
As we discussed this over breakfast, we worked ourselves into quite a self-righteous lather. We should all eat locally, whenever possible! So much better for the planet! And so much tastier!
And how much more local can you get than your own backyard? In fact, we have two apple trees in our little backyard, probably planted by the Victorians who built the place (or, perhaps more likely, by the groovy group home that installed itself here in the 60's). Mostly, these apple trees serve the function of crapping all over our garden: they are a major source of debris, shedding diseased leaves pretty much all season long, and providing a home for much-detested squirrels, who feast on the apples and then fling their half-eaten fruit on our heads.
It’s Fashion Week in New York City.
Actually, Fashion Week began last Thursday, a full four days ago – the fact that I am just catching on is proof enough of just how unfashionable I am, here in unfashionable Boston.
Further proof of my lack of fashion savoir faire: it would never occur to me to begin a Week on a Thursday. Anyone inclined toward symmetry would pick Sunday or Monday to begin a Week.
It's Labor Day -- can the Carpool Blues be far behind? Here's another tune from "Songs of Domestic Bliss" -- a hymn for the season.
Click here for listening, lyrics and free download!
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Husband Steve is cavorting with his brothers in the Basque motherland. My older child, a college junior, is leading a group of incoming freshmen on a kayaking expedition in the glorious Pacific Northwest. Child #2 is off to orchestra camp, to spend a week playing Grieg, Stravinsky and Wagner with 100 of her new best friends.
And I am home, defrosting the freezer.
