But Call Me Betsy

Thursday at work, I got an email from Dan and it was a video that he and Luke made, using pictures of Ernesto on Dan's computer. I think Luke is concerned that I miss my cats, and so he wanted to do a little montage video to make me miss them less. Here it is.

Been reading a lot of student fiction lately and submissions to Philadelphia Stories for the next magazine publication, and there are a couple of hiccups I see sometimes in the work. One is the impulse to be very specific about which side a person might be using to complete an activity. For example, sentences like this (not from any real manuscripts): "She picked up the fountain pen with her left hand and began writing on the paper while resting her right cheek on her right palm." While I get the impulse here--writer wants to be sure we're very clear on the way the person is poised--it is unintentionally humorous (perhaps she's sitting on her right palm while writing, if you catch my drift) and unnecessary unless the story is actually a Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery involving forged documents by a person who's really right handed. Better just write: "She picked up the fountain pen and began writing." The additional description of her face resting on h...

Padhraig sent me this video about the L'Homme Chat (the Cat Man)--a man who performs with his cats on the thoroughfares of France. Behold. Bela: L'Homme Chat from Paul Trillo on Vimeo .

Because I think Dan's a natural. Here are the highlights/low lights of last night's Bachelor , acted out in real time. Go here to view it for yourself. As usual, Dan steals the show.

I do. I just started reading his collection of essays called, The Braindead Megaphone . Some of it is intelligent and thoughtful and measured, and then some of it is just silly and funny. Here is a Part I of a puppet video made to "The Optimist," an essay from this book. If you don't love him, maybe that's because you haven't read any of his writing. Like, did you ever read " Puppy ?" or " Winky ?" or " The Victory Lap ?" (I haven't read this one yet, but I will). These are all from The New Yorker and so they must be good.

I heard Justin Timberlake interviewed by Terry Gross the other day, and she played an excerpt from one of his SNL skits called "Dick in a Box." Here it is for your Tuesday viewing pleasure.

We saw some sheep this weekend at the Howell Living Farm and I was reminded that sheep aren't the smartest farm animals you could ever hope to have. But here is a video of a cute lamb who hops:

Yes, I'm sorry about that. I've been having trouble getting to this blog as much as I would like because of work and being lazy.But we watched the whole entire thing last night, which also means that this is a fairly long video recap.I look darling in it, as per usual, except for when I look like a sausage. This season of taping recaps has taught me two things: (1). I never want to go blond; and (2). I can't wait for the next season when I can play more than one character. Dan is a trooper. When my friends see one of these videos, they always say, What a good sport he is! But trust me, he likes doing this as much as I do. Or more.

And so is my summer writing class, so maybe (just maybe...) Dan and I will be able to do some instant replays until the show finishes up in like 2 weeks. Here's one we did last night:

Somehow, I managed to offer and be taken up on the offer to dog sit this weekend. I realized almost right away that I would need somehelp, so Lisa Marie has been my walker friend, even going so far as to get up at 6:45 AM this morning to get the dogs fed and walked at 7 AM. That's what I call a good friend. I forgot how much energy dogs have. I'm used to cats who can sit or lie like lumps for hours at a time, barely requiring one to notice their existence. Dogs, on the other hand, are noisy breathers, they scratch at their collars, they pull your arm out of your socket as you walk them, and you have to pick up their warm poop with your hands. I still like dogs, but I do appreciate my Emma Carol just a little bit more, even though, this morning, she was walking all over the stovetop, flaunting her own saftey. Anyway, here is an example of dog walking for you.

This won't be as funny if you haven't seen the actual performance, but...

Because I am lazy and unimaginative today, I'm just going to post this video I stole off of Cute Overload. I will try to think of an interesting topic of conversation later on.

So, this video is probably like 20 years old, but I just saw it for the first time last week at my Aunt Margaret's. I love it. It's a public performance piece and I swear, I am not a person who gets chills and I get goose bumps when I watch this. I may be coming down with the ague, or it may be that this is just really cool. I'd love to try this in 30th Street Station.

I am having some difficulty lately keeping my emotions in check, must be the whole dark weather thing and no sunlight and my toe hurts and also I really, really need to take a shower. I can't wait to get home to do that. But something that does make me laugh is this video that I finally figured out how to upload to blogger. This is what my cousin Steph, my Aunt JoAnne and I did on Friday night. We made lego constructions; JoAnne's was the most abstract. At one point, she said that we wouldn't be allowed to go to bed until all of the 5,000 pieces were used up. I like this video b/c you can see how often she uses her hands to express herself. Like, she didn't know I was focusing just on a close-up, but still, she's very expressive. She could be a hand model for QVC for sure. Here are two other photos of windows I passed in South Philly on my way to work and then on my way back. The first has a sign you probably can't read that says "God Bless America with a n...