Aside

Things I am into right now:

Firefly:



Bright sari-colored scarves like Frieda Pinto's:



(I found a similar one at Target)

M.I.A and A.R Rahman.

Reubens served Bronx style(with coleslaw):



American Idol (shame).

Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman.



(Start with the short stories--Smoke and Mirrors or Fragile Things. Next, read The Graveyard Book. Then it's time for the Sandman Series--Gaiman's graphic novels. Graphic novels aren't low-brow or less intelligent or less worthy of your time. They're not 'just comic books'. It's a different way to tell a story. Fewer words. More pictures. Art marries literature. How could you complain?)



Smoked chicken with white sauce and Pink Pull Your Panties Down Punch. (The name comes from the fabulosity that is "Peace, Love, Barbeque" by Mike Mills and Amy Mills Tuncliffe.)



Things I am not into right now:

Having a house built one house down from ours. I write this to the sweet serenade of hammering, drilling, shouting construction workers. Not to mention the fact that they can see us clearly every time we go in the backyard to play. Extremely private, it is not.

Kristin Hannah, her Hallmark card novels "Firefly Lane" and "True Colors", and her sudden and inexplicable rise to fame.

My cats. I hate my cats. Every morning, they go outside to escape the tyrannical fists of Thing One and Thing Two. And twice a day, every day, they cry to be let inside THE VERY MOMENT I have finished putting the girls down for nap or bed time and sat down. Girls are in bed. I clean house, wash dishes, make coffee and sit down with a book: Cat wants in. Girls are in bed. I am finally sitting down to eat dinner and watch Idol after a long day: Cat wants in. They drive me nuts.

Coughs that outlast eternity. And running noses. And crying, fusty, sick-babies. Did I mention said virus comes with a yucky tummy component? Or that I have it too?

The Captain's new show, Castle, being on Monday nights. Um, Captain, I work Monday nights, recall? Monday night rolls around, I ain't available. I reckon we're gonna need to suss this out 'fore I can be on my merry. Otherwise I 'spect to have reason to be angry as a Reaver. (And NO, I cannot just record it. We don't have a DVR. We are unwilling to add 30 bucks a month to our cable bill for a DVR. We get basic cable right now and it's $14 a month. I mean, if it was Firefly coming back on Monday nights, I'd get the damn DVR. But it's The Captain in another guise, and I'm afraid this is not enough).

(It's called A Recession. I clip coupons. We don't go out to eat. I check books out from my work instead of buying them. Make lattes at home. Use tax refund to pay off debt. And don't order DVR's. Or HBO. Tragic.)

(Yes I DID just pay $20 bucks for the complete series of Firefly on DVD but only because I had no other way of staving off my crippling withdrawals. After watching the last episode, I didn't feel myself for days. I'm still not fully recovered.)

Even The Goblins are feeling the strain. I mean, as Ayla reminded me today:

"Even cheese popsicles melt."

And she's right, you know.

Then Indy threw in her two cents:

"Stupid monster! Took all my stickers."

(A fitting reference to the previous administration if I ever heard one.)