truth in advertising

Lately, campaign signs have started popping up for the upcoming school board elections. My favorite so far simply reads: "Crooks for School Board"

Insulated

It's finally cooled off these last couple of days, and we've opened our windows, letting in cool air, letting in breezes, letting in the neighborhood.

It's late and I can hear the neighbors in their yard yelling, but I can't tell why. Are they mad? Or just exuberant? Or maybe drunk? Or some combination?

I wonder what I'm supposed to do. Do I just ignore it? Do I walk over and ask them politely to quiet down? Do I call the police for such a little thing, simply because I'm afraid to take care of it myself? I fantasize about standing in my darkened window, yelling "Shut up already!" into the anonymous darkness . . .

Since we've moved here, it's been breath-sucking hot and humid. In the morning we walk from our air-conditioned house to our air-conditioned car. We drive to our air-conditioned work where we sit amongst the cubicle walls until it's time to drive our air-conditioned cars back to our air-conditioned home. We're insulated -- cut-off. Now the windows are open and we're all living a little closer.

I worry about it. About the way we can pick and chose who we want to be with. If you bother me, if you're different, if you make me think, and I'm too tired, too apathetic, too threatened, I just turn towards my work, my car, my house and shut you out.

It's less authentic, but it feels like safety. I'm just not sure that's a good thing.

Public Notice

If you're running a business, and your business has a website, and that website includes a contact email address, you need to check your damned email once in awhile.

It should not take more than 24 hrs to respond to a simple email request for info. And I really have no patience for the folk that never respond at all.

(And by the way, the iBook? Broken. Again. Yes, that's the third time in fourteen months. No, I'm not happy.)

No, it really doesn't

Awhile back, Pukka and I had lunch at a fast food chain. He ordered a salad with chicken on it. Now at this particular place, the salad comes separate from the chicken, so the hot stuff can stay hot and the cold stuff cold, until you mix them yourself and then everything becomes uniformly lukewarm. Yum!

As we're sitting there eating, I happened to notice some small text across the bottom of the pouch that held the chicken. There it said, and I swear I'm not making this up:

"Chicken contains soy and milk."

home

Last week Pukka and I visited the Johnson County Fair for date night.

We ate corndogs, funnel cake and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Pukka offered to win me a stuffed animal. We saw my favorite kind of cow (I think they look like they should give chocolate milk!). We touched some rabbits and saw a peacock egg. We watched the 4-H egg races, saw some pigs, and checked out the garden that the Master Gardeners keep there.

As dusk fell, we sat under a big tent and watched the last class of the youth talent show. The first place winner in each class gets to compete in the state fair, so it's a big deal to these kids and their parents and supporters. We listened to girls in formal dresses sing beautifully while the smell from the ag barns wafted on the breeze.

This is how it is in Iowa. I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Sad, but true

I was looking at Flickr thumbnails from Blogher tonight when Pukka got home from work. "Whatcha doin'?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, as I started to ask him how his day was. "Hey! Is that Blogher?" he asked before I could get another word out.

Yes, we're geeks.