• Mood: energetic
• Music: Neko Case—If You Knew

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER

When Anders came back from Italy last week, he brought home pasta. Not just any pasta, but most especially not the kind you think of when you think of Italian pasta. No, he brought home Mickey Mouse pasta, Winnie-the-Pooh pasta, Zoo pasta, and best of all, just to get a rise out of Karin: Disney PRINCESS pasta! You can get her going just by murmuring "pretty pretty princess" under your breath; and although we try to minimize such teasing it's not easy to restrain ourselves because she takes it so seriously and makes such hilarious faces while she stomps around denying her girlyness. But she liked the princess pasta because YOU GET TO BITE OFF THEIR HEADS!

***

I'm starting to think that maybe I should have thought of brushing up on my long-lost German before my brother's wedding, which is rapidly zooming up in my face like a rabid bee, buzzing wildly around my head with things I need to remember to do (get Karin's passport! wedding gift! practice that song! book a rental car!) while I flail my arms madly, hoping that will keep it away longer. Simone's family speaks very little English, and I don't think my meager stock of half-remembered vocabulary is going to be much help: schweinhund! peltzmutze! kartoffel! rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz!*

***

Calendar madness! Friends of ours recently got married (after 24 years together, 16 years engaged, and 2 teenage children) and we haven't seen them in AGES. It's not just them, though, we have a whole address book full of friends that we haven't seen in ages. So, when I called to congratulate them on their wedding, we decided it was high time to try and find a date to have dinner together and I sent an email with some date suggestions. I got back the expected response that nope, none of those would work, and so I called and she and I sat with our calendars in front of us and the earliest day that we can get together is TWO full months from now. "We'll hang out together when we're retired," I said, and we both laughed, but damn, it's sad because it's true.

***

I just finished reading Lost Worlds by Michael Bywater, and this poignant paragraph of looming loss struck me particularly hard: "And will there come a time when all transport is lost, after the oil runs out and we have done nothing to find another way even though we had all the warning in the world, and we remember jet planes and motor cars and all the casual travel and all the distances we shrank as being just another lost world?"

***

Bippity Boppity Birthday Wishes to albatrossity!

*pigdog! fur hat! potato! beef labeling regulation & delegation of supervision law!