WhimsyLand

Junie says I have a vacuum cleaner fetish.  That could be true.  As soon as I've had one for a while, I start getting buyer's remorse and figure nothing's going to get that cat hair up except a $1200 Miele or $600 Dyson.  I've actually read extensively on the Web regarding vacuum cleaners.  Reviews.  Recommendations.  User comments.  There is no consensus.  Some people don't like to deal with bags.  Some don't think they're getting enough animal hair up.  Even many of the Dyson owners kvetch about them being only so-so on carpet or difficult to use on sofas.  I want a vacuum cleaner that sucks everything that isn't carpet out of the carpet.  That cleans coffee and wine stains.  That doesn't grumble over the occasional screw left over from a computer rebuild.  Maybe Junie's right.

This year, I decided to give my family a donation in their name to Heifer International.  Between my two sisters, brother, parents, two nephews and a niece, we've managed to rack up a llama, a pig, a sheep, a goat and a water buffalo.  That leaves bees, geese, ducks, heifers and trees for next year. 

That's my grand-niece, Gracie.  My sister became a grandmother a second time yesterday, thanks to the newly arrived Ms. Daly DeNike.  How Gracie is related to my sons is a mystery.  Second-cousin?  First cousin, twice removed?  I only know of these terms because they come up all the time in English murder mysteries.  That doesn't mean I know what they mean.

I read some more of jubilat.  I really liked the strange Memory by Kaethe Schwehn:  "I am not going to church.  I am wearing my church clothes and carrying a flour sack filled with four dead rabbits.  . . . My father rolls a sappy cottonwood bud between his fingers and puts his fingers to my nose.  Smell that he says."  I also liked Coffin Bone by Gabriella Klein: "    I was the loom / inside a horse, the engine / that drives thrashing /     on great slabs of neck and anger at god // is not god.  The Appaloosa is refusing to cross thresholds,".   I'll have to re-read some more.  Maybe this stuff is growing on me.

I'm getting Time again.  Actually, I don't know why I stopped getting it, but I'm getting it again.  Here's the poop:  Dakota Fanning is 13 and has made 16 movies.   A woman was blacklisted by American Airlines after lighting a match on a plane to hide her flatulence, "setting off alarms and causing the plane to make an emergency landing".  Princess Di's driver, on night of her death, had a blood alcohol level 3 times the legal limit (and he was in France, so God knows what the limit is).  Israeli businessman Avi Shaked has offered to pay the Israeli Premiere $100 million to sit down with the Palestinian Premiere.  Turning over security to the Iraqis will mean empowering the largely corrupt police force and not much better military.  John McCain, the overwhelming front-runner for the GOP presidential candidate, has to run hard to the right to get nominated, then hard to the middle to get elected.  NASA wants to go back to the moon, build a manned base, and use it as a jumping off spot for Mars.  There are 12,440 Starbucks and they're going for 40,000.  Those of you with small children probably know that there's a new Yellow Wiggle.  George Clooney's 300-pound pet pig of 18 years died peacefully last month. 

See you tomorrow.